Maruyama Masao to Yoshimoto Takaaki : kaisōfū shisōron -- Nihon-teki shii no yōsō -- NIhon kindai ni okeru kojin shugi no keiki to shosō -- Natsume Sōseki no kojin shugi.

The present study aimed to investigate how native Japanese speakers learning Chinese choose preferred positions for temporal adverbs depending on their level of Chinese proficiency. A naturalness judgment task conducted on native Chinese speakers showed that the most natural position for Chinese temporal adverbs was before the subject and that placement after the locative prepositional phrase was incorrect. The same task applied to native Japanese speakers found the most natural position for Japanese temporal adverbs was also before the subject. Further, (...) when they appear at the beginning of a sentence, they provide the time for the entire sentence. Accordingly, temporal topicalization appears to influence naturalness decisions by both native Chinese and Japanese speakers. A point of difference was that in Japanese, a temporal adverb placed after a locative prepositional phrase was judged to be acceptable. When the same task was given to native Japanese speakers learning Chinese divided into three Chinese proficiency level groups, placement before the subject was the most preferred by the higher Chinese proficiency group. In addition, placement after the locative prepositional phrase was unfavored by them while the same position was frequently selected by the lower level group. As Chinese proficiency increases it appears that the preferred temporal adverb position is before the subject and the placement after the locative prepositional is judged to be unnatural. Thus, a sense of suitable temporal adverb positions in Chinese is influenced by the level of Chinese proficiency of native Japanese speakers. (shrink)

A 10 kHz pulsed X-ray generator utilising a hot-cathode triode in conjunction with a new type of grid control device for controlling X-ray duration is described. The energy-storage condenser was charged up to 70 kV by a power supply, and the electric charges in the condenser were discharged to the X-ray tube repetitively by the grid control device. The maximum values of the grid voltage, the tube voltage, and the tube current were −1.5 kV, 70 kV, and 0.4 A, respectively. (...) The duration of the flash X-ray pulse was primarily determined by the time constant of the grid control device and the cut-off voltage of thermoelectrons. The X-ray duration was controlled within a region of less than 1 ms; the X-ray intensity with a pulse width of 0.27 ms, a charged voltage of 70 kV, and a peak tube current of 0.4 A was 0.92 μC kg −1 at 0.5 m per pulse. The maximum repetition rate was about 10 kHz, and the size of the focal spot was about 3.5×3.5 mm. (shrink)

In classifications of vocabulary knowledge, vocabulary size and depth have often been separately conceptualized (Schmitt, 2014). Although size and depth are known to be substantially correlated, it is not clear whether they are a single construct or two separate components of vocabulary knowledge (Yanagisawa & Webb, 2020). This issue has not been addressed extensively in the literature and can be better examined using structural equation modeling (SEM), with measurement error modeled separately from the construct of interest. The current study (...) reports on conventional and Bayesian SEM approaches (e.g., Muthén & Asparouhov, 2012) to examine the factor structure of the size and depth of second language vocabulary knowledge of Japanese adult learners of English. A total of 255 participants took five vocabulary tests. One test was designed to measure vocabulary size in terms of the number of words known, while the remaining four were designed to measure vocabulary depth in terms of word association, polysemy, and collocation. All tests used a multiple-choice format. The size test was divided into three subtests according to word frequency. Results from conventional and Bayesian SEM show that a correlated two-factor model of size and depth with three and four indicators, respectively, fit better than a single-factor model of size and depth. In the two-factor model, vocabulary size and depth were strongly correlated (r =.945 for conventional SEM and.943 for Bayesian SEM with cross loadings), but they were distinct. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

This essay brings together the discourses of Daoism and Deleuze and Guattari to elucidate the convergence among them on a fundamental metaphysical level that can open, for the receptive mind, a deeper intuitive insight and understanding of what a person is capable of doing and becoming, and how such a person can enter into a different relation with spacetime beyond the conventional understanding of it. After examining how vital energy (qi 氣) is transformed in internal alchemy (neidan 内丹), the focus (...) turns to a consideration of the possible relation between Daoist “immortality” and Deleuzo-Guattarian “becoming-imperceptible.”** This essay is the result of decades of bodily practices beginning with gongfu 功夫 (Sanhedao 三和道 style) followed by taijiquan 太極拳 (Wu 吳 family style) and eventually qigong 氣功, which informed considerably my later philosophical reflections. Parts of this paper have been presented previously at the Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, March 25, 2016; the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy, Western Sydney University, Australia, November 23, 2018, the Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle, University of Leiden, Netherlands, May 24, 2019; and the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition, University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, September 9, 2021. I am grateful for the opportunity to present my work at these societies and for the important critical feedback I received from their memberships. I also want to thank especially Meilin Chinn and Elisabet Yanagisawa for their many hours of conversation with me about my work on this topic. (shrink)