Undergraduate Research Grant

GRANT OVERVIEW

The Undergraduate Research Grant offered by the Department of Asian Languages is used to support a select number of Stanford students to carry out research in China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan ), Japan , Korea , or domestically on an academic topic of their interest. One of the major goals of this grant is to encourage students to perform research using an Asian language that may eventually lead to an honors thesis.

This grant may be used to defray travel and living expenses overseas or domestically. The exact amount for each award will depend upon the quality of a given project proposal as well as the total number of grants the Department chooses to award.

In 2004, funded by the VPUE Department Grants for undergraduate education, the Department of Asian Languages was able to fund five undergraduate research projects. These projects were: “A Dish is Just a Dish?: What Western Food Means to Japanese Youth” by Salome Sherre (supervised by Prof. Reichert); “Japanese Gardens: History, Design, and Aesthetics” by Karen Loh (supervised by Prof. Carter); “Dialects in Japan” by Alex Gorman, Nathan Powell Shockey, Christine Lee Mee Jung, Chieze Okoye, and Ryan Sands (supervised by Prof. Matsumoto).

This year, again, grants will be provided under the two categories:

• Internship with Asian Languages faculty member (faculty designed)
  Internships in 2005 will be available:
• with Prof. Lewis on the topic of “Emotions in Early China,”
• with Prof. Carter on the topic of “ Japanese Gardens : History, Design, and Aesthetics,”
• with Prof. Levy on the topic of “History of Japanese Feminism.”
• with Prof. Matsumoto on the topic of “Dialects in Japan .” (in progress)
• Individual research project (student designed, with faculty supervision)
  Students will design and propose projects to be supervised by the Asian Languages faculty members listed on the next page with appropriate specialization.

Recipients of the awards will be expected to work closely with their faculty supervisors during all stages of planning, conducting, and concluding the research. The results of each project must be presented to the department in a format deemed suitable by the supervising faculty member; possibilities include a research paper, compilation of an annotated bibliography, creation of a web page, a short film etc. All students will be expected to participate in a Departmental undergraduate studies forum in Fall 2005 (unless otherwise noted), to which all students and faculty will be invited.

The benefits of these research projects are numerous. Not only will an internship or research project provide you with an opportunity to accelerate your Chinese, Japanese, or Korean language study, it will also provide you with the tools and opportunities you need to conduct research that moves beyond English-language secondary source materials and into the realm of primary sources and on-site fieldwork.

PROPOSAL GUIDELINES

Project proposals describe your research project and are submitted as a supplement to the Application Form. The proposal should include, but is not limited to, the following elements:

• Title of Project-
Name of the project you are proposing.

• Summary Description-
A brief summary of your proposed research.

• Background and Objective-
A statement about your work on the project thus far -- including relevant readings and the project's background as a whole. Cite any relevant course work, other experience or skills which you may have. Briefly describe the overall objectives and goals for the project. This section should be supplemented with a transcript and resume.

• Methodology-
A brief description of how you are proposing to explore your objective or answer your research question

• Time frame and Itemized Budget -
When do you expect to be working on your project? When, and for how long, do you expect to be preparing for your research? Collecting data? Writing up your results? This section should be written in tabular, or outline form, and should include a general identification of how many days or weeks you have budgeted for each aspect of your plan (travel and living expenses overseas, research materials, etc.)

• Bibliography–
Include a short bibliography of publications germane to the proposed study.

• Letter of Recommendation-
Include at least one letter of recommendation for the proposed project from a language instructor or supporting faculty member.

• Signatureof Supervising Faculty Member-
This must be a member of the Asian Languages faculty with expertise in the field you wish to study. The following faculty members are available as supervisors for individual projects:

• Prof. Mark Lewis - any aspect of early or medieval Chinese society (B.C. 500 to 1000 A.D.)
• Prof. Yoshiko Matsumoto – Any research related to the Japanese language and society, which can be conducted either here or in Japan . Specific research interests include semantic, pragmatic and sociolinguistic aspects of phenomena in Japanese including pragmatics of reference, honorifics, speech acts, bilingualism, and the relation among language, gender and age. Questions of ideology and identity reflected in teaching and learning Japanese as a second language are another interest.
• Prof. James Reichert - Research topics related to modern Japan --literature, history, popular culture, etc.
• Prof.Chao Fen Sun - Any research related to Chinese linguistics including syntax, semantic, sociolinguistic, writing, and history.

*** Students applying for internships will be expected to consult with the relevant faculty member before submitting an application. Project proposals for internships should indicate that such consultation has taken place and that the research plan satisfies the expectations of the supervisor. ***

If you have received any additional funding (grants, scholarships or other awards) towards your proposed project during the 2004-2005 or 2005-2006 Academic Years, please indicate this in your proposal.

APPLICATION PROCESS

APPLICATIONS ARE DUE APRIL 5, 2005

Applications are available in the Department office (50-51D) or can be downloaded at this site.

Project applications and inquiries should be sent to:
Department of Asian Languages
Stanford University
Main Quad Building 50
Stanford, CA 94305-2034
Phone: (650) 725-2742
Fax: (650) 725-8931
Email: asian-languages@stanford.edu

2005 ASIAN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH PROJECTS

• The Emotions and Music in Early China (Reed Criddle/Professor Mark Lewis)

Where there is music, there is chaos. Where there is music, there is unity. According to early Chinese philosophers of the Confucian school, which of these statements is true, are they both right, or are they both wrong? This study investigates the philosophical underpinnings of music’s societal functions. How do the highly regarded Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove approach this topic? Were their theories extensions of traditional values or attacks on established ideology? Ruan Ji’s treatise on musical theory entitled Discourse on Music evaluates the validity of traditional Confucian values, as laid out by the Book of Rites, through a discussion of the interplay between emotion and song.

• Virtual Sign Systems in Japanese Semiotic Life (Thomas Gaubatz/Professor Indra Levy)

My goal for this project is to develop a theory to describe the relationships between literary and social experience. I begin by considering theories of the literary text that characterize it alternately as primarily formal or primarily mimetic, and proceed to look for a theory that describes the interaction of formal and mimetic elements in the same text. The results of this study suggest that the tension between formalism and realism in certain genres can result in an exchange of signs between the space of literary representation and that of social experience.

With this theory in mind, I look for examples of such an exchange in the literature and popular culture of Edo Japan. Edo is a particularly interesting setting, because the literary institution known as the ukiyo and the social institution of the licensed prostitution quarter come together to produce a space in which literary representation and social experience interact dramatically. I describe some of the forms of this interaction with examples taken from ukiyo literature such as the sharebon and from the kabuki theatre.

• Dialects of Japan: Age and the Tsugaru Dialect (Evelyn Chin, Lindsay Gibbon, Jeffrey Hu, Christine Lee/Professor Yoshiko Matsumoto)

This research is a continuation of the 2004 “Dialects of Japan” research project. The linguistic features of the Tsugaru dialect of northern Japan and their variations among different age groups are examined in a series of case studies featuring urban and rural three-generation families in Tsugaru. The 2004 findings showed that younger generations in the area held more pride in their dialect than did older generations. To determine if this is the result of a change in dialect or a shift towards the standard dialect of Japan, dialect features between younger and older generations were compared. Findings from these case studies show that although younger generations can use the standard dialect with more ease than older generations, their version of the Tsugaru dialect is not necessarily closer to the standard dialect than the older generations.

2005 ASIAN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM

Date: Wednesday, Nov 30, 2005
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Location: Building 50, Room 51A (Asian Languages Department Library)

Buffet Lunch Provided

Come and hear the recipients of the Department of Asian Languages’
undergraduate research grants present their research findings.

Sponsored by the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (VPUE)