This study discusses the influence of history on identity for those who are involved with the Vancouver Japanese Language School and Japanese Hall (also know as the VJLS). The historical significance of a recognized landmark such as the VJLS creates a unique atmosphere that allows the past to be very much part of the present. In addition to many types of commemoration, memory and imagination provide links to the past. The community at the VJLS was very diverse including both recent immigrants and those with family connections to the Internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II. As a result, the feeling of a connection to the past was discussed in many different ways. These discussions are used in this study to explore the question of what it means to be Japanese Canadian and to be Canadian. At the VJLS, the history of Japanese Canadians is shown to belong to all Canadians rather than just to a separate ethic group within Canada.

This dissertation examines the socio-cultural conditions of Japanese society as reflected in factors that induce recent Japanese immigration to Canada. The examination is based on interview research done with six female and six male Japanese immigrants living in Vancouver, who arrived in Canada after the mid-1990s. While previous migration studies emphasized political-economic conditions as the causes of migration flow, the narratives of these interviewees reveal a different migratory pattern that is motivated by spiritual well-being and life values. In order to encapsulate the complexity of contemporary migration flow, the push/pull factors that induced interviewees' emigration are thematically categorized and analyzed within a frame that emphasizes both these factors' interdependence with the interrelationships of Japanese social systems that have swayed the interviewees' decision to emigrate from Japan, and the nature of complexity in Japanese society. Showing the pluralism of these factors, they are categorized into nine themes: 1)physical environment; 2) spiritual enrichment and a stress-reduced life style; 3) socio-cultural constraints; 4) family life; 5) education; 6) age restrictions; 7) gender roles; 8)diversification, and 9) self-actualization. Luhmann's theory of social systems and Foucault's notion of governmentality serve as touchstones for the re-interpretation of the push/pull factors based on the examination of the interrelations among three Japanese social systems of family, education, and employment. The analysis reveals the complexity of the push/pull factors. Moreover, the interviewees' image of a "simple Canada," which also contributes to their decision to immigrate, is explained in terms of the "double complexity" of Japanese society stemming from both the complexity of modern society and the complexity of an amalgam of "modern" and "pre-modern" elements in Japanese society. Through an extensive examination of the correlations between the experiences of contemporary Japanese migrants and Japanese social systems, this study brings new insights to discussions on tensions between human agency and social structure, and the importance of intangible, mental images in the ways people shape their lives.

Using ethnographic methods, namely in-depth interviews and participant-observation, I examined the everyday experiences of fifteen female Japanese students during a nine-month study abroad. I attempted to investigate (1) the nature of cultural learning in the participants of this study during their sojourn and (2) how different social networks in the sojourn context affected the processes of their cultural learning and adaptation to the host environment. I employed models of cross-cultural adaptation based on a perspective of cultural learning / social skill acquisition as a theoretical framework. During the first few months in Canada, students without previous international sojourn experiences seemed to be physically and emotionally vulnerable. Some students experienced emotional upheaval which was consistent with previously published accounts of the characteristics of the sojourner adaptation process. A close association of the Japanese within their group throughout their sojourn resulted in the formation of an ethnic enclave in the dormitory community. This provided a support network for most of the Japanese students, but at the same time, caused interpersonal conflicts in the group. The strong group solidarity also negatively affected the relationship between the Japanese students and their Canadian peers in the dormitory. The Japanese students in this study not only had to adapt to the socio-cultural characteristics of the host environment, but also to the norms and values of their own group which reflected their cultural heritage. Although they encountered a number of challenges while in Canada, the process of overcoming difficulties and absorbing new experiences enabled them to grow personally and intellectually. Towards the end of their sojourn and after returning to Japan, the students recognised positive changes in their attitude and behaviour which they attributed to the different experiences they had through their study abroad. While several findings of the study indicated that the participants' adaptation to the new cultural setting reflected theoretical propositions in the cross-cultural adaptation literature, the study also showed how the unique nature of the students' sojourn environment had a significant impact on their adaptation process.

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This thesis investigates the question of how the arguments of a given verb are linked to positions in a phrase structure. Through a study of passives, psych verbs, and ditransitive verbs in Japanese, it provides empirical support for the hypothesis that arguments having particular thematic roles are associated with particular syntactic positions systematically. / Chapter 2 deals with passives, in particular, two types of passive constructions, direct and indirect passives. Following some previous works, it is argued that the subject of a direct passive is generated in the same position as an object of the corresponding active verb, having the same thematic role, whereas the subject of an indirect passive is projected as an argument of a separate predicate. Several pieces of evidence for this hypothesis which are not given in the literature are provided here. / Chapter 3 is concerned with psych verbs, focusing on those that participate in a causative alternation. It is proposed that causative counterparts of these verbs can have two different structures that are parallel to the two types of passives discussed in Chapter 2. The subject of one type is generated in the same position as the object of the noncausative counterpart, having the same thematic role, whereas the subject of the other type is projected as an argument of a separate predicate. / Chapter 4 takes up ditransitive verbs, specifically, those that have inchoative counterparts, which do not project the subject of the ditransitive construction. There are two types of such verbs: one promotes the accusative argument of the ditransitive construction, rather than the dative one, to the subject of the inchoative counterpart, while the other chooses the dative argument over the accusative one for the subject of the inchoative counterpart. It is argued that this reflects the difference in the base-generated position of the dative argument between the two types of verbs. Moreover, the dative arguments of the two are distinguished in terms of thematic role. / This research is meant to contribute toward having a further understanding of how the participants of an event are expressed in grammatical forms.

This study aims to examine critiques of social injustices expressed through the medium of literature by Native peoples of Canada and Japanese Canadians. My objectives are to explore literary representations of their struggles and examine how these representations and the struggles intersect. My study uses the following: “Coyote and the Enemy Aliens” by Thomas King, My Name is Seepeetza by Shirley Sterling, Obasan by Joy Kogawa, The Kappa Child by Hiromi Goto, Burning Vision by Marie Clements, and “The Uranium Leaking from Port Radium and Rayrock Mines is Killing Us” by Richard Van Camp. The findings reveal Canada’s nation state still rooted in a White settler constructed society, and a legacy of imperialism in the form of globalization that destroys Native peoples’ lands. My thesis concludes with the im/possibilities of reconciliation, also considering my own role as a person of colour, a temporary settler from Japan.

The Internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War was a blatant act of racial-based injustice in Canadian history. In this study, the term "Internment" encompasses all the events that resulted from the abrogation of Japanese Canadian rights of citizenship--mass uprooting from their homes and communities in British Columbia (BC), dispossession, forced relocation to internment camps in interior BC, road camps, and sugar beet farms, followed by forced exile from BC to Japan, or forced migration and assimilation across Canada. The twelve participants in this study are Canadians of Japanese heritage who were born after the Internment and whose parent(s) or grandparent(s) experienced a form of Internment. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, we explored intergenerational communication of the Internment experience and the lived experience of growing up in the aftermath of the Internment. The findings revealed alternative responses and outcomes to historical trauma theory. Threaded throughout these stories and responses were prevailing themes reflecting values of gaman and enryo, in addition to resilience and empowerment.

This thesis has explored English loan words in modern Japanese, in terms of phonological aspects and attempted to find the causes for the sound change in the English words when they were incorporated into Japanese. This thesis has also exemplified differences between English and Japanese sound systems and syllabic systems. In addition, the thesis has discussed causes for ellipsis of loan words and ten principles governing the occurrence of ellipsis and, finally, the thesis touched upon limitation of ellipsis.

The Internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War was a blatant act of racial-based injustice in Canadian history. In this study, the term "Internment" encompasses all the events that resulted from the abrogation of Japanese Canadian rights of citizenship--mass uprooting from their homes and communities in British Columbia (BC), dispossession, forced relocation to internment camps in interior BC, road camps, and sugar beet farms, followed by forced exile from BC to Japan, or forced migration and assimilation across Canada. The twelve participants in this study are Canadians of Japanese heritage who were born after the Internment and whose parent(s) or grandparent(s) experienced a form of Internment. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, we explored intergenerational communication of the Internment experience and the lived experience of growing up in the aftermath of the Internment. The findings revealed alternative responses and outcomes to historical trauma theory. Threaded throughout these stories and responses were prevailing themes reflecting values of gaman and enryo, in addition to resilience and empowerment.

This study aims to examine critiques of social injustices expressed through the medium of literature by Native peoples of Canada and Japanese Canadians. My objectives are to explore literary representations of their struggles and examine how these representations and the struggles intersect. My study uses the following: “Coyote and the Enemy Aliens” by Thomas King, My Name is Seepeetza by Shirley Sterling, Obasan by Joy Kogawa, The Kappa Child by Hiromi Goto, Burning Vision by Marie Clements, and “The Uranium Leaking from Port Radium and Rayrock Mines is Killing Us” by Richard Van Camp. The findings reveal Canada’s nation state still rooted in a White settler constructed society, and a legacy of imperialism in the form of globalization that destroys Native peoples’ lands. My thesis concludes with the im/possibilities of reconciliation, also considering my own role as a person of colour, a temporary settler from Japan.