Abstract:

In the information society, there is more than enough information for students, not only in textbooks but also on the Internet. The Internet homogenizes the world and makes life more standardized. It seems that local traditional culture is becoming outdated for ordinary life, but people still have traditional cultural roots without realizing it.

The purpose of this research is to recognize the cultural elements in their lives that students can discover and learn from linguistic landscapes around them. This ongoing research has been conducted with students since 2017, focusing on the main street of Nikko, a World Heritage Site in Japan. Students check signs/notations written in Japanese and in English in front of stores and public facilities. Particular attention has been paid not only to mistranslations from Japanese into English, but also to objects that are difficult to translate due to cultural differences and contents that are difficult to convey in a direct translation. The differences in language characteristics and cultural attitudes are specifically illustrated in some cases. For example, Japanese and Western names for sweets are not the same. Japanese traditional sweets (Wagashi) are often named after old poems or natural scenes. Even small sweets have names such as "Akebono (dawn)" or "Iwa-Utsu-Nami (waves hitting rocks)". They are based on old Japanese literature; Japanese essays and Japanese traditional poems (Waka) written more than 1,000 years ago. If they were translated directly into English, it would be unnatural. Students and researchers start their learning by noticing these gaps between the two languages. They become aware of traditional elements and realize the Japanese naming tradition that dates back more than 1,000 years to the Heian period. The students physically see Japanese culture as their own and approach it from the concrete object in front of them, not from the Internet. It is time they start learning from what is right in front of them. On the other hand, students sometimes find it difficult to translate English into Japanese. Students learn the range of meanings that words can have.

The research begins by photographing the language along the street and discussing the situation. Automatic translation is sometimes used to reduce students' difficulties with English knowledge. They learn about language expansion from easy-to-use smartphone translations. The students are then asked to identify the parts that do not translate well and to think about the reasons why. Although the short words found on the street are basic and seemingly easy compared to the longer sentences in the book, polysemic words that contain many images are more difficult to translate automatically. Thus, the students become interested in the differences between Japanese and English, expanding from mere paraphrasing to cultural learning. They initially feel they can easily look things up on their smart phones, then consider and gain in-depth knowledge. With the improved accuracy of automatic translation, will students no longer need to learn a foreign language? No, they won’t. It is necessary to obtain the skill to use it and they have to build upon their learning using current technology.

This paper will specifically describe how to learn from language landscapes and the results of the research.

Keywords:

Linguistic Landscape, Smartphone, Translation, Culture, Language Learning.