LINGUIST List 11.2599

Fri Dec 1 2000

Confs: Topic and Subject Markers/ LE JAPONAIS 2000

Editor for this issue: Rob Beltz <roblinguistlist.org>

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1. WLODARCZYK Andre, LE JAPONAIS 2000

 << Le JAPONAIS 2000 >>International Seminar
 on the Japanese Language in Theory and Practice

The title of the next lecture is

 Centers of Interest, their Ambiguities
 and Relative Theory of Translation

The lecture will be given in French by

 Prof. Andre WLODARCZYK, Ph. D.
 Stendhal University - Grenoble 3

 on THURSDAY 7 December 2000 at 5:00 p.m.
 CNRS - Instituts des Hautes Etudes Japonaises
 52, rue Cardinal Lemoine 75231 PARIS 05
After the lecture, we kindly invite you to our reception at which wine and
snacks will be served.

Topic of the lecture:

 One of commonplaces about the Japanese language consists in
considering the morpheme "wa" as the prominent marker of Topic and <
sometimes also < the morpheme "ga" as the marker of Subject.
Paradoxically, another commonplace consists in saying that the Japanese
language is not logical because of the Subject drop. I proposed a
theoretical framework (theory of multiple centres of interest) which is
general enough for treating such problems by putting them in contrast with
similar problems in Indo-European languages (namely, French).

 Moreover, making reference to the previous guest speaker's (Prof. IDE
Sachiko) talk concerning comparative ambiguity of English and Japanese, I
will show the above mentioned problems in the light of formal tools with the
intention to build a Relative Translation Theory.

General description of the Seminar

 To meet the increasing demand for Japanese language proficiency, a
series of lectures is being given by guest scholars. The major themes focus
on the Japanese Language (its history and structure, electronic
dictionaries, machine translation technologies etc.) as well as linguistic
and social problems (verbal behaviour, networking and other aspects of the
computerisation of Japanese society).

 Previous lectures were delivered by Prof. TSUJII Jun-ichi (Tokyo
University), Prof. Zoya SHALYAPINA (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow),
Prof. HOSOKAWA Hideo (Waseda University) and by Prof. IDE Sachiko (Japa n
Women�s University).

 The following lectures will be given by Prof. Viktoria ESCHBACH-SZABO
(Tuebingen University), Prof. Romuald HUSZCZA (Warsaw University), Dr Lone
TAKEUCHI (University of London) among others. Another call for
participation will be sent later.

 The Seminar organised thanks to grants from The Japan Foundation and
La Fondation Tanaka by the UMR "Japan's Culture"- a common research unit of
CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and EPHE (Ecole Pratique
des Hautes Etudes).

Seminar director: Prof. dr Andr� Wlodarczyk
E-mail: wlodext.jussieu.fr, homepage:
www.u-grenoble3.fr/stendhal/people/AWlodarczyk/