This paper looks at the practice and history of video game translation, with the goal of expanding the definition of translation. Video game translation is a complex process that incorporates a number of aspects from other types of translation, such as literary, audiovisual, and software translation, to form a dynamic whole. As a new medium, video games also present their own challenges to translation in the form of interactivity, technology, non-textual and extra-textual elements, audience involvement, and new business practices. Even though video games are a relatively new medium, the practice of translating them has undergone drastic transformations over the years. A case study of the various official translations of Final Fantasy IV provides a brief overview of this development to help the reader get a complete understanding of the video game translation process. The paper concludes by arguing that the different sign systems present in video games are integral to the player’s understanding of the game, and should be considered as aspects that can be translated. Parallels are also drawn between the translation process and the medium of the video game, to show that different approaches to translation can provide the audience with a more holistic view of a work.

The role of technology in education has expanded to a near universal reality. In foreign languages the field of Technology-enhanced Language Learning, has long sought to effectively implement instruction with these tools, and often to great success, often through the guise of Computer-assisted Language Learning. However, most studies investigating the student perception of class structures incorporating technology are based on what instructors have implemented. Students, the counterparts of instructors, often own more than one technological tool and will often employ these tools in their studies. For learners of foreign languages, certain aspects of technology are selected for various tasks based on personal beliefs on how effective these modes of technology may be. This study seeks to discover which technologies students of Japanese select, how they employ those tools and if it makes them feel more confident in their studies. This study also seeks to answer how much technology students wish their instructors would use and hopefully inspire foreign language instructors to adopt technology in a way that aligns with student preference.

ABSTRACT BEAUTY LOOKS CREATED BY WOMEN: TRADITIONAL BEAUTY AND NEW AESTHETICS FOR WOMEN MAY 2021 YURINA YOSHIKAWA B.A., NANZAN UNIVERSITY M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Amanda C. Seaman In this thesis I focus on comparing the styles of beauty or “looks” that women have created for themselves, as well as concepts of traditional beauty. By doing so, this thesis will clarify how women try to change traditional beauty concepts and express themselves. As anyone who has watched TV in Japan has noticed, Japan has stereotyped aesthetic values of women that mass media such as magazines or TV dramas have created and disseminated. Pictures of beautiful women (bijinga 美人画) and beauty pageants are just two examples. In Japan, women having black hair, white skin, almond-shaped eyes, and well-defined noses are considered beautiful, and this aesthetic has not changed much since the Heian period (794-1185). After the work of Takehisa Yumeji (1884-1934), whose pictures created the foundation of kawaii culture in the Taishō period (1912-1926), women have adopted this new aesthetic category in order to get around the fixed aesthetics of the bijin look. In other words, the start of kawaii culture is one of the turning points for women to evade a monolithic image of what is considered beautiful. However, as kawaii culture spread across the world due to the popularity of manga and anime, the notion of kawaii also began to be fixed by the mass media, becoming as rigid as the notion of bijin. For example, Japanese idols from the Shōwa period (1926-1989) through the Heisei and Reiwa all look alike by design. Many idols have bangs, natural black or dark brown hair, and flat-shaped eyebrows which are attractive to men. To overturn this tendency, some women have created new kinds of makeup styles to express their own version kawaii aesthetics. Ganguro, yamamba, or “gal” makeup were all created by women and popular among young women. In general society—particularly men—did not accept these makeup styles as aesthetically beautiful; the public regarded these looks as not kawaii but rather ugly (busaikuブサイク). However, even though society found looks ugly, this kind of makeup nevertheless became extremely popular among girls and women in their 10s and 20s who regarded such looks as kawaii and trendy. This aesthetic can be seen as what happens when women get around fixed notions of beauty by adopting and transforming the idea and look of kawaii. In this thesis I discuss the development of the kawaii aesthetic and how it becomes a way for women to break out of the tyranny of bijin. I look at a trend of new bijinga and talk about how women are trying to break away from the traditional notion of bijin. Using a collection of contemporary bijinga, I examine how actresses are fighting to do their own makeup for their films, TV programs, or dramas; in particular, actresses Ishihara Satomi and Nanao try to express their own beauty by creating the characters’ looks themselves. In this respect, the characters are original styles of beauty created by these women.

This thesis addresses popular works of fiction written or produced near or after 1989 in Japan and examines the roles that sexual orientation, gender and 20th century social and discursive history have had on the conceptualization of familial relations in postwar Japan. This thesis will analyze the means by which writers and artists during the 1980s and 1990s have engaged discourses of family in their works and will argue that these writers explicitly use queer (hereby defined as non-heterosexual and/or non-gender conforming) individuals and narratives to question, reshape and propose alternatives to culturally received images of heterosexual marriage and the nuclear family model. In Japan, the earliest legal model of family was the ie or house system, which codified earlier social structures that had existed amongst the samurai class of the Edo period (1600-1868) and enshrined the concept of male primogeniture into law. This was changed after World War II, when the Ie system was abolished and replaced by a model of conjugal (nuclear) familial relations. This new model of household organization was promoted by the Allied Occupation, major businesses and corporations, and the postwar Japanese government, and its attendant gendered division of labor was the foundation upon which Japan recovered economically in the postwar period and remade itself as an export-driven, capitalist country in the 1960s and 1970s. This model of family, however, has come under increased socioeconomic pressure as a result of the 1990 real estate market bubble bursting and subsequent economic contraction, as well as by continuing demographic trends that indicate a long-term, decreasing population. This thesis will argue that the model of familial relations propagated during the postwar period, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s is ideologically rooted in a historically contingent model of sanctioned heterosexual relations, and that through examining depictions of those precluded from these sanctioned relations, a better understanding of the operation of gender, sexuality and familial relations as they operate in the Japanese popular and cultural spheres can be achieved.

In 2020, technology is generally accepted, and we can see many people using their digital devices such as smartphones everywhere. It is easy to see how dependent we are on technology, anytime and anywhere. Mobile apps are one of the time-effective tools for our daily lives. College students in the United States are always busy with their classes and assignments, and for them, apps are not only for having fun but are also convenient, reliable, and essential supporting tools for their academic and daily lives. This paper examines the students’ preferences in learning the Japanese writing system “Hiragana” with mobile apps and paper worksheets. The study had 14 participants who joined a 4-day-a-week class. The participants were asked to use both the app “Ganbatte kana” and copies of the worksheet “Purinto Kizzu” to practice Hiragana in and out of class. After all four classes over 1 week, the participants answered a questionnaire about the class and what they thought of using the paper and the app to study Hiragana based on their experience. The results of this study showed that most students preferred the paper to the app. While most of them use their smartphones every day, they have an attachment to paper. Some of them preferred physical experiences more than digital experiences for writing. However, most of them appreciate the app’s multifunctionality and convenience, and half of them want to use both apps and paper for their future learning. If we can use both in each strong area effectively, we can expect new technology and traditional materials to become more satisfying and useful learning tools.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether manga and anime can be used as learning materials. Manga is one of the biggest entertainments in Japan and is read all over the world. Many Japanese language learners read manga for fun and use it as a learning material. Similarly, several Japanese language learners watch anime for fun and use it as a learning material. Due to the fact that Japanese language learners use manga and anime as learning materials, this study examines whether using manga and anime together provide high contribution for inferring novel words. There were 6 participants analyzed in this study. The result showed that using both materials together had positive effects on Japanese language learners’ inferencing skills if there is no huge difference for the amount of information between manga and anime. However, if there is a huge difference for the amount of information, most Japanese language learners did not get any effect. These results indicate that using manga and anime together provide high contribution.

The purpose of the present research was to investigate whether or not there is similarity of values between American and Japanese college students. The following research hypothesis was established: There is a positive relationship between the value system of the Japanese college students and that of American college students.

The field of intercultural communication has recently been introduced to Japan from the United States. The theories and concepts of this field have been developed based on Western social sciences, and they are likely to be culture-bound. This thesis investigates the possibility that modifying Western ideas in the field of intercultural communication would make the study of this subject more effective for Japanese learners.

The purpose of this paper is to study and evaluate the Japaenese program relative to the Mongol question. Some questions to consider would be: What relationship was there between the Hsingan provinces and the Manchukuo government and why? What specific Mongol programs did the Japanese promote and why? What were the results? How did the Mongols react? What designs did the Japanese have in Outer Mongolia and Inner Mongolia relative to her key position in Eastern Mongolia? Why and how did China and Russia react to Japan's plans and what were the results? How did the Mongol react to the three Asiatic Powers at this period? In an overall view, what were the successes and failures of the Japanese in their attempt to solve the Mongol question?

English and Japanese are very different from each other in tems of their structures. And consequently no one would call the present translation of the Japanese Book of Mormon a low rank-bound translation. However, a substantial amount of grammatical categories of English such as number, redundant subject for Japanese, pronominal expression, and the passive voice which is not used so often in Japanese as in English, are introduced in the translation. The improper placement of subject, verb and object also serves as a cause of foreign tones. Thus the present translation has more factors of Formal-Equivalence translation than those of Dynamic-Equivalence translation. The principle of 'accuracy and fidelity' resulted in an unnatrual translation to some extent, imposing an effort of understanding the text on the shoulders of the readers. It was also found out that a lack of knowledge of Hebraism resulted in 'betrayal by ignorance,' creating many unnatural Japanese expressions as well as a certain number of mistranslations.