Revisions Revisions

 Happy Halloween!

After a busy Halloween weekend (I was a cop), it is time once again to do a blog post, this time, revising my essay from before. I really didn't change much because I think that the appositives and other brush strokes were effective as is. I do have a question though or rather, more of a comment. In real life, I do not think that I would have edited this paper at all to include some of the appositives, especially the appositive using parentheses. This is a formal paper, and I feel like putting the parentheses in it makes it too informal. However, I did add them for the blog just as an example for how they could be used although in this situation I would not use them.

Japan as Viewed by a Westerner: Recorded and Reflected on in Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan by Lafcadio Hearn

         Traveling to Japan originally to fulfill a job as a newspaper correspondent, Lafcadio Hearn spent more than four years fully immersed in Japanese culture [PRESENT PARTICIPLE PHRASE]. In 1894, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan was published in two volumes, Hearn’s reflections upon his experiences in Japan [APPOSITIVE]. Japan is described as a mystical place where everyone is courteous, full of gratitude, and less serious than in the West. And Hearn certainly has the perspective of a Westerner coming to Japan, being born in Greece in 1850, living in Ireland for almost twenty years and then the United States. In the preface to his novel, Hearn sets the tone by stating that even though he spent four years in Japan, he has still learned little in terms of adopting Japanese habits and customs. This is significant. As much as Hearn familiarizes himself with Japan, by ultimately marrying a Japanese woman and becoming a citizen, he is still distinctly a foreigner looking in, and Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan reflects his Western viewpoints. Most importantly, Hearn stresses that Japanese culture cannot be understood in terms of what is “normal” to Westerners. Thus, Hearn attempts to put his Western pre-conceived notions and perceptions aside and regards Japan with the utmost respect, as a land different and unique, and Hearn greatly appreciates these different qualities.

In Japanese culture, a smile is a sign of respect, and to smile is often seen as a social duty. During the 1890s when Hearn was in Japan and even today, Westerners viewed smiling and being happy in all circumstances as odd and as signifying insincerity. At the beginning of Glimpses in Unfamiliar Japan, Hearn talks about his first day: “Everybody looks at you curiously; but there is never anything disagreeable, much less hostile in the gaze: most commonly it is accompanied by a smile or a half smile.” In Japan, Hearn was never met with hostility but rather with generosity. He did not quite understand this at first. After being in Japan for three years, Hearn went to the port of Kobe and was able to interact with Englishmen again and hear actual Englishmen speak English. It was this return to Western interaction that allowed him to realize that he had changed and had begun to act Japanese, face smiling and waist bowing [ABSOLUTE]. The reason Westerners do not respond well to the smile is because it is hard to understand, and it is hard to interpret it according to Western notions:

“It [the way Hearn was out of touch with his Western side/was acting Japanese] also seemed to me a fair illustration of the difficulty of mutual comprehension between the two races, — each quite naturally, though quite erroneously, estimating the manners and motives of the other by its own.”

There is a miscomprehension that can sometimes lead to unpleasant results. For example, Hearn tells the story of a Yokohama merchant, “T,” who one day became very angry with an old samurai. The old man continued to bow and smile and be polite, but this only made T angrier, and he finally hit the old man. So the old man, upset, pulled out his sword and could have killed T but did not [PAST PARTICIPLE If "upset" serves as a verb not an adj]. This showed Westerners that Japanese people should not be treated poorly in response to their smiles, which are out of politeness, and also that Japanese are not submissive under injustice. To be serious or unhappy is to be rude; Hearn says that the East is happier and less serious than the West, and the West is unaware of its seriousness. When trying to understand this cultural obligation, one must view it in terms of a completely different culture than that of a Western society.

In Japan, Hearn acquired a teaching position teaching English at Shimane Prefectural Common Middle School and Normal School in Matsue (a town in western Japan) [APPOSITIVE]. Once again, it was important for him to comprehend the Japanese education system in regards to Japanese culture, not relating it to education in the West. There were significant differences between Japanese and the European education system. Hearn explains the relationship of the teacher to the pupil as like the relationship of an older brother to a younger brother. The teacher is just considered a “teacher,” not a master of a particular topic. The students have more power in the Japanese classroom as well. For instance, the students can expel the teacher if he is not doing a sufficient job, instead of the other way around as seen commonly in the West and today. In this aspect, “the instructor’s success is not guaranteed by a degree, but by his practical knowledge and his capacity to how he can communicate it simply and thoroughly.” There is little punishment in the Japanese classroom, no copying lines over and over, because the severity of teachers would not be tolerated by the students. The biggest difference that Hearn perceives in Japanese and Western education is that Westerners “associate emotional sensibility with intellectual expansion” whereas Japanese do not. Emotionally, a Japanese child is closer to us than a Japanese college student would be. A teacher would gradually feel his pupils drifting away from him as they learned more. This can be hard to comprehend without placing oneself in Japanese society with a culture and ideals diverse from our own.

Throughout Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, Hearn describes the country with admiration and awe; he sees the beauty around him in the nature, scenery, and little quirks that make Japan unique. It is interesting how after living in Japan for some time, he can go back and reassess European artwork and design and sees how it lacks uniqueness when compared to, for example, Japanese gardens, both simple and beautiful [ADJECTIVE OUT OF ORDER]. Hearn particularly notices the lack of mass-produced, expensive, and ugly products—houses and dishware—in Japan, something that is common in Europe and elsewhere [APPOSITIVE]. From a European or Western perspective, the Japanese houses are flimsy and cheap, but by looking past that, one would see as Hearn sees: beautiful décor and on the inside a combination of new technology with traditional craftsmanship [APPOSITIVE]. 

In general, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan is focused more on descriptions of the places that Hearn has visited than on his opinion of Japan. When considering differences between the West and Japan, he does not say that one is better than the other or even compare them directly; rather, he explains them in relation to each other. Of course, this is not to say that Hearn’s reflections on his experiences in Japan are unbiased because every work is biased, at least to some extent. He clearly loved the country and went on to teach English literature at Tokyo University after Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan was published. Did Hearn describe Japan as a more exotic land than it was at the time? Some critics say that he did, and he did have a great passion for Japan, so it is possible that he romanticized it. Regardless, Hearn’s novel was published at the turn of the twentieth century, a time when Westerners were becoming increasingly interested in this mysterious land of Japan. Hearn stresses that in order to fully comprehend Japanese culture, one must do so without adhering solely to Western ideals. In Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, Hearn does just that, and at the time, his novel offered unique insight into a mystical culture and was a success.

Appositive this!

So I decided to read through a few of my old papers and see if I could find one that used the four different types of appositives (with commas, dashes, a colon, and parentheses) and the participle phrases and other grammatical structures. With some minor tweaking, I was able to get this paper to work. I'm sorry that it's rather long, but I didn't want to cut it down just for this blog. Also, I did remove the footnotes and work cited portion of the original paper:

Japan as Viewed by a Westerner: Recorded and Reflected on in Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan by Lafcadio Hearn

         Traveling to Japan originally to fulfill a job as a newspaper correspondent, Lafcadio Hearn spent more than four years fully immersed in Japanese culture [PRESENT PARTICIPLE PHRASE]. In 1894, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan was published in two volumes, Hearn’s reflections upon his experiences in Japan [APPOSITIVE]. Japan is described as a mystical place where everyone is courteous, full of gratitude, and less serious than in the West. And Hearn certainly has the perspective of a Westerner coming to Japan, being born in Greece in 1850, living in Ireland for almost twenty years and then the United States. In the preface to his novel, Hearn sets the tone by stating that even though he spent four years in Japan, he has still learned little in terms of adopting Japanese habits and customs. This is significant. As much as Hearn familiarizes himself with Japan, by ultimately marrying a Japanese woman and becoming a citizen, he is still distinctly a foreigner looking in, and Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan reflects his Western viewpoints. Most importantly, Hearn stresses that Japanese culture cannot be understood in terms of what is “normal” to Westerners. Thus, Hearn attempts to put his Western pre-conceived notions and perceptions aside and regards Japan with the utmost respect, as a land different and unique, and Hearn greatly appreciates these different qualities.

In Japanese culture, a smile is a sign of respect, and to smile is often seen as a social duty. During the 1890s when Hearn was in Japan and even today, Westerners viewed smiling and being happy in all circumstances as odd and as signifying insincerity. At the beginning of Glimpses in Unfamiliar Japan, Hearn talks about his first day: “Everybody looks at you curiously; but there is never anything disagreeable, much less hostile in the gaze: most commonly it is accompanied by a smile or a half smile.” In Japan, Hearn was never met with hostility but rather with generosity. He did not quite understand this at first. After being in Japan for three years, Hearn went to the port of Kobe and was able to interact with Englishmen again and hear actual Englishmen speak English. It was this return to Western interaction that allowed him to realize that he had changed and had begun to act Japanese, smiling and bowing [ABSOLUTE??]. The reason Westerners do not respond well to the smile is because it is hard to understand, and it is hard to interpret it according to Western notions:

“It [the way Hearn was out of touch with his Western side/was acting Japanese] also seemed to me a fair illustration of the difficulty of mutual comprehension between the two races, — each quite naturally, though quite erroneously, estimating the manners and motives of the other by its own.”

There is a miscomprehension that can sometimes lead to unpleasant results. For example, Hearn tells the story of a Yokohama merchant, “T,” who one day became very angry with an old samurai. The old man continued to bow and smile and be polite, but this only made T angrier, and he finally hit the old man. So the old man, upset, pulled out his sword and could have killed T but did not [PAST PARTICIPLE?? If "upset" serves as a verb not an adj]. This showed Westerners that Japanese people should not be treated poorly in response to their smiles, which are out of politeness, and also that Japanese are not submissive under injustice. To be serious or unhappy is to be rude; Hearn says that the East is happier and less serious than the West, and the West is unaware of its seriousness. When trying to understand this cultural obligation, one must view it in terms of a completely different culture than that of a Western society.

In Japan, Hearn acquired a teaching position teaching English at Shimane Prefectural Common Middle School and Normal School in Matsue (a town in western Japan) [APPOSITIVE]. Once again, it was important for him to comprehend the Japanese education system in regards to Japanese culture, not relating it to education in the West. There were significant differences between Japanese and the European education system. Hearn explains the relationship of the teacher to the pupil as like the relationship of an older brother to a younger brother. The teacher is just considered a “teacher,” not a master of a particular topic. The students have more power in the Japanese classroom as well. For instance, the students can expel the teacher if he is not doing a sufficient job, instead of the other way around as seen commonly in the West and today. In this aspect, “the instructor’s success is not guaranteed by a degree, but by his practical knowledge and his capacity to how he can communicate it simply and thoroughly.” There is little punishment in the Japanese classroom, no copying lines over and over, because the severity of teachers would not be tolerated by the students. The biggest difference that Hearn perceives in Japanese and Western education is that Westerners “associate emotional sensibility with intellectual expansion” whereas Japanese do not. Emotionally, a Japanese child is closer to us than a Japanese college student would be. A teacher would gradually feel his pupils drifting away from him as they learned more. This can be hard to comprehend without placing oneself in Japanese society with a culture and ideals diverse from our own.

Throughout Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, Hearn describes the country with admiration and awe; he sees the beauty around him in the nature, scenery, and little quirks that make Japan unique. It is interesting how after living in Japan for some time, he can go back and reassess European artwork and design and sees how it lacks uniqueness when compared to, for example, Japanese gardens, both simple and beautiful [ADJECTIVE OUT OF ORDER]. Hearn particularly notices the lack of mass-produced, expensive, and ugly products—houses and dishware—in Japan, something that is common in Europe and elsewhere [APPOSITIVE]. From a European or Western perspective, the Japanese houses are flimsy and cheap, but by looking past that, one would see as Hearn sees: beautiful décor and on the inside a combination of new technology with traditional craftsmanship [APPOSITIVE??]. 

In general, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan is focused more on descriptions of the places that Hearn has visited than on his opinion of Japan. When considering differences between the West and Japan, he does not say that one is better than the other or even compare them directly; rather, he explains them in relation to each other. Of course, this is not to say that Hearn’s reflections on his experiences in Japan are unbiased because every work is biased, at least to some extent. He clearly loved the country and went on to teach English literature at Tokyo University after Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan was published. Did Hearn describe Japan as a more exotic land than it was at the time? Some critics say that he did, and he did have a great passion for Japan, so it is possible that he romanticized it. Regardless, Hearn’s novel was published at the turn of the twentieth century, a time when Westerners were becoming increasingly interested in this mysterious land of Japan. Hearn stresses that in order to fully comprehend Japanese culture, one must do so without adhering solely to Western ideals. In Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, Hearn does just that, and at the time, his novel offered unique insight into a mystical culture and was a success.

Has my grammar been wrong my entire life?!?!

This week, I really began to question myself as a writer. Basically, I learned that I had been doing something wrong my entire life—my relative pronouns often make broad references, which is grammatically incorrect. Example:

                   Hitler invaded Poland. This showed that a war would soon begin.

This sentence is incorrect. “This” is referring back to the broad idea of Hitler invading Poland, not one noun specifically. The sentence would be correct if I said: “This action showed that a war would soon begin.”

I think that this rule is rather hard to follow, and it seems a like a lot of students make this error in their writing. Even as I write this now, I feel as though I’m trying to be extra careful to not use it wrong! (And I think that I just made a mistake right there, by saying “to not use it wrong.” What is it referring to?) Honestly, I’m not so sure that I like this rule. IF PEOPLE CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’RE REFERRING TO, THEN I think that it should be okay to write it this way. This is where the differences between oral and written discourse come into play. We can say it wrong all the time and it is okay, but it is when you are actually writing it in a formal paper that it is important to be correct. This leads me to my question.

QUESTION: I know that grammar trends over time, and it seems like it usually trends towards becoming less and less formal. Is there much point in ever teaching the rule I just mentioned if we think that grammar will trend toward it not even being a rule anymore?

Verb Types and Complex Sentences

This week, I learned all about the three different sentence patterns:
1) S-Vi (subject followed by an intransitive verb)
           She ran.
2) S-Vt-O (subject followed by a transitive verb and direct object)
           She ate food.
3) S-LV-SC (subject followed by a linking verb and subject complement)
           She felt stuffed.

An “S-Vi” sentence is the simplest kind, but the “S-Vt-O” is the type of sentence that I seem to see most frequently.

I also learned how to identify the differences between a simple sentence, complex sentence, and a simple verb and COMPLEX VERB; I HAD AN IDEA of what these were before but was not able to explain it sufficiently. A complex sentence is a sentence that has two sentences put together that each could be complete sentences on their own. There is a comma and a coordinating conjunction in between each “mini-sentence.” (Eg: He ran, and she rode her bike.) A simple sentence, obviously, is just one. (Eg: He ran.) A complex verb is when there are two or more verbs aka actions in the sentence. (Eg: He ran and rode his bike.) But a simple verb only has one verb. (Eg: He rode his bike.)

I really enjoyed learning the cool acronym to help remember all of the coordinating conjunctions that are used in a complex sentence. FANBOYS – For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So.

However, I felt like there was a little confusion in our class and in the world in general about when to use a comma and a coordinating conjunction. I’m not sure why so many people have problems with it because it was always seemed rather obvious to me. I think that I was just taught it in the simplest way possible—if each part of the sentence could be a complete sentence on its own, you add a comma and coordinating conjunction between them. Otherwise, you don’t. It’s as simple as that!

QUESTION: I’m still not entirely sure when a verb is a linking verb and when there is a subject complement. Is it when you are describing something, and the subject complement is a description or feeling? Is it then a linking verb as soon as there is a subject complement/if there is a subject complement then the verb is automatically a linking verb? Or are there some limitations on it?

Verbs, Verbs, and More Verbs! Adjectives! Nouns! Adverbs!

This week I learned about sentence breakdown, as well as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. For me, the biggest fact I learned is that adverbs don’t just describe verbs! They can describe verbs. OR ADJECTIVES! OR OTHER ADVERBS! For example, one could say, “Bob is way too excited.” Of course, this adverb describing an adverb pattern probably isn’t something that you would want to use in a formal paper; it seems to appear more in common speech.

I also learned the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. Verbs are transitive when there is an object in the sentence/the sentence follows typical sentence structure (subject→verb→object). An intransitive verb is when the verb has no object (Eg: Emily runs).

QUESTION: I really don’t have any questions relating to concepts that we’ve learned this week. Being the brilliant person that I am, I actually already knew most of it. The only question I have, I guess, is how the heck am I supposed to teach this? I love learning it because I’m a total grammar nerd, but obviously the average student is not. I do know that it’s important to stress using these different techniques within students’ writings, so that they can see some real-life applications, but to what extent should we teach them more or less everything that we have learned in the past week?

Apostrophes? What Are Those?

So far in my English 326 class, we have learned about apostrophes. Coming into this class, I was fairly confident in my grammar abilities, particularly with the usage of apostrophes. Although I was already well versed in when to use an apostrophe and when to not use one, I couldn’t explain the rules; it was more just “it feels right to put one here.” After talking about apostrophes in class, I feel a lot BETTER, MORE CONFIDENT, MORE SELF-ASSURED now that I have the rules nailed down for me and have an actual list of them. I also learned why you use ’s at the end of words (Eg: I do’s). It is for clarification purposes. (Eg: You wouldn’t want to say “I dos.”)

I don’t have any particular questions about using apostrophes, but I am a little unsure about grammar changing over time and the different house styles that we discussed in class. We have a list of rules, but it seems like they are very subjective. Are the “new” apostrophe rules correct? I understand that grammar changes over time and has different trends, but how do you know which one is really correct? Are either of the lists (new and old rules) okay to use as long as you keep the rules consistent throughout? It certainly seems that way when it comes to newspaper/magazine house style, in which they choose whichever styles of rules they want to use and keep it consistent throughout the publication.

Getting Down to Business: Grammatical Issues to Focus on

I’m trying not to sound cocky, but I really don’t think that I need to focus on any particular grammatical and mechanical issues as a writer this semester. Of course, one can always improve his or her writing, I just don’t think that I have one very specific area that needs work.

However, from writing this blog, particularly my first post, I realize that I use some rather long sentences with a lot of commas. For the most part, I think that my writing is technically still grammatically correct, but it might be better if I figured out a way to shorten things up or employ a different sentence structure. For example, my previous blog post included this sentence:

     “You had to cram it in your mouth slowly, and you tried to hold it in there without

     swallowing, but then you realized that there was no possible way to spit it out, so you

     proceeded to gulp it down as quickly as possible.”

In this sentence, I used three conjunctions and many commas. Is it grammatically correct? I think so, but I really don’t know. It could be shortened a bit or maybe broken up. This issue is something that I can definitely work on this semester.

Like I said before, I really can’t think of many grammatical or mechanical issues that I need to improve. Oh, Microsoft Word Spellcheck says that I use the passive voice a lot. Of course, how accurate is Word’s Spellcheck? It annoys me because it says that “alright” is a word, something that I fail to believe. Maybe I just don’t like people informally saying “alright” compared with the more acceptable “all right.” Anyways, back to the passive voice. It is so hard to try to stop using it in English when they are teaching us how to use it in my Spanish class! Grrr. Here are some generic examples of the passive voice:

  

     “Mistakes were made.”

     “I was hit by the ball.”

While the second example seems fairly clear that it is in the passive voice, the first one can be harder to decipher. Obviously, by writing examples specifically meant to be in the passive voice, I have no problem telling that it is in the passive voice! It is when I am writing an essay or other academic writing that I have trouble deciphering if it is the passive voice or not. Funny…when I used Spellcheck on the two example sentences, it said that they are “0% Passive Sentences.” Hmmm…

I’m sure that there are way more ways that I can improve my writing, other than what I just mentioned here, and I am excited to see how this class will help me and what the semester holds!