A role for “air writing” in second-language learners’ acquisition of Japanese in the age of the word processor
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Margaret Thomas
Abstract
This article addresses the pedagogical implications of kūsho ( ; literally “air writing”), that is, the spontaneous manual tracing of Sino-Japanese characters (kanji) in the air with a bare fingertip, by learners of Japanese. I describe the phenomenon of kūsho, then review research indicating that it is common (if under-recognized) during kanji learning and recall and, moreover, is associated with a small but statistically significant advantage over conventional paper-andpencil copying as a technique for memorizing the shapes of kanji. I propose that teachers of Japanese explicitly sanction kūsho and encourage students to selfconsciously incorporate it into their repertoire of techniques for memorizing or recalling kanji. The issue is particularly salient in the context of the ongoing cultural shift away from writing by hand to computerized word processing, which in this generation is reshaping the psycholinguistics of literacy in Japanese. Practice of kūsho may secure a kinesthetic basis for facility with kanji among learners for whom keyboard-based typing is rapidly displacing manual writing.
© 2017 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Contents
- Extended discourse in first and second language acquisition: A challenge and an opportunity
- Japanese compliment discourse: The process of collaborative construction
- Sequential patterns of storytelling using omotte in Japanese conversation
- A corpus-based analysis of the paradigmatic development of semi-polite verbs in Chinese and Korean learners of Japanese
- Language learners’ use of non-turn-final ne
- A role for “air writing” in second-language learners’ acquisition of Japanese in the age of the word processor
- On expressions of agent de-topicalized intentional events: A contrastive study between Japanese and Russian
Articles in the same Issue
- Contents
- Extended discourse in first and second language acquisition: A challenge and an opportunity
- Japanese compliment discourse: The process of collaborative construction
- Sequential patterns of storytelling using omotte in Japanese conversation
- A corpus-based analysis of the paradigmatic development of semi-polite verbs in Chinese and Korean learners of Japanese
- Language learners’ use of non-turn-final ne
- A role for “air writing” in second-language learners’ acquisition of Japanese in the age of the word processor
- On expressions of agent de-topicalized intentional events: A contrastive study between Japanese and Russian
