From: davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane)
Newsgroups: fj.misc
Subject: Re: There's-only-one-Truth-ism?
Date: 26 Jul 92 14:15:33 GMT
Distribution: fj
Organization: Aegis Society, Kyoto Japan

magnus@jaist-east.ac.jp (Magnus Halldorsson) writes:

>David elaborates further on our discussion of 'single-truth' behaviour:

>   So is there one and only one, correct way to say/do everything within 
>   each local group? I think so. 

>   And is there one correct answer for the Japanese culture as a whole?
>   No, I think there are many different ways of doing/saying things,
>   all of which are called "We Japanese". 

>I realize that we probably have a notational problem, but I think that
>while your observations are interesting, the conclusions, as stated,
>are imprecise.

>What we're really talking about is the much discussed 'uniformity' of
>the Japanese people. I think the key point is that this uniformity is
>in *behaviour*, not in *thought*. After sufficient 'nemawashi', the
>proper 'tatemae' protocol insists on uniform outward appearance of
>agreement of each group. The nature of this process, then also implies
>that the differences in true opinion ('honne') are appreciated,
>understood, and accommodated for.

I think I understand what you're getting at but 'tatemae' and
'honne' are both behaviors (unless you feel you can read people's
minds :-) , so perhaps we could call them 'public behaviours' and
'private behaviours' within relatively local groups (each of which
claims to be "We Japanese"). 

>As to how to map this back to your language aquisition problem, I'm
>not to sure. Clearly, uniform curriculum makes learned knowledge more 
>uniform in Japan. But, just as every Japanese knows that sometimes 
>'ga' and 'o' are interchangable, they could also understand that a 
>noun in English can have a definite article or not. On the other hand, 
>the view exists that 'English' = 'Oxford Standard English' (or 'BBC 
>English'), and other variants are dialects. As an American, you 
>certainly won't buy it, but if that makes your students more 
>comfortable, just tell them that your 'dialect' is a lot more 
>'$@$+$C$3$$$$(J'... 

Sorry, but I don't understand '$@$+$C$3$$$$(J'...  especially as how I'm
on a machine which doesn't display kanji (not that it would help :-)

My strategy for dealing with the situation is to say that IMHO the
main event is understanding what other people say (and asking
questions if you don't) and making sure other people understand you
(and changing the way you say things if they don't).  There are some
people who would rather learn to speak correct English and I suggest
they find another teacher as I'm not qualified to teach that subject
and don't have any interest in it besides. Thus I don't have to
deal with the 'English = xxxx Standard English' problem.

It takes the ones that remain some time to make the change because
they know almost nothing about how to ask questions (when they don't
understand) and how to say things differently (when other people
don't understand them). 

Dave

--
Dave McLane                                       davidg@aegis.or.jp
You're free to copy/quote/translate this as long as credit is given. 
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087
Newsgroups: fj.misc