Hello Aspenx san, and all,
Aspenx san, welcome to the forum, and thank you for your interesting and helpful posting.
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Before I begin, I first want to streamline terminology a bit. Following the terminology used in the papers I mentioned, I'd like to introduce the following terms:
1) ANALYTIC reasoning and learning style = seeks to cut up problems into mutually independent subproblems, and seeks to formulate abstract rules/models to solve each subproblem, where the models/rules are ideally as independent from context as possible (i.e. the models are "general" i.e. "abstract").
2) HOLISTIC reasoning and learning style = does not dissect problems into subproblems, always looks at concrete cases, and always takes into account context. In this reasoning style, it is no problem that context can always have a very significant influence on the meaning of a part. It seems that, in this reasoning style, general models (that are meaningful in the "abstract" sense, i.e. without any context taken into account) are not sought or used (or at least not very much).
I.e. I'd like to replace "nitpicking" by "holistic reasoning". The holistic style is new and foreign to me (to tell the truth I'm fascinated by its alienness), but I'm open to the possibility that the holistic style may be a viable reasoning style too.
To summarize, the hypothesis is that Western culture and Western languages are relatively analytic, and that East-Asian culture and languages are relatively holistic. And the question is: to which degree is it necessary to adopt the holistic reasoning style when learning Japanese as a foreign language? (when one is a Westerner who has been previously conditioned to predominantly use the analytic reasoning style).
I have been switching between "abstract thinking" and "nitpicking" for the longest time. This forum helps me to revise/reinforce the correct usage of the language and sometimes I even learn something new. As far as I see, there have been no aggression by anybody against you.
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And certainly, it is not the way if you want to become really good at this language.
That is absolutely interesting. You wrote in your "info" that your native language is English. Your place of origin, Singapore, seems to put you in an excellent location to compare between "Western" (analytic) and "East-Asian" (holistic) cultures.
So you agree with the thesis that in order to learn to use the Japanese language at ADVANCED level, it is necessary to indeed adopt the holistic reasoning style to a certain degree. That is really interesting.
Your statements seem to imply that you think that it is possible to learn Japanese to beginner's (or medium) level using analytic style exclusively and without adopting holistic thinking -- but that it beomes hard to advance to proficient level without adopting a degree of holistic thinking. (Am I interpreting you correctly?)
Can you give a simple example of a Japanese sentence that can be understood only via holistic thinking, and that is hard to make sense of via analytic thinking?
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I have another question: namely, to which degree may the lack of concern in native Japanese speakers for formulating clear grammar rules for the Japanese language be the result of the simple fact alone that they are native speakers? (i.e. have been brought up in the language, therefore "think in" the language automatically without having to "construct" sentences laboriously via conscious use of explicit grammar rules).
My own native language is Dutch, and I've been on a forum for learning Dutch as a foreign language, and I found it hard to explain Dutch since I have little idea of Dutch grammar rules -- when speaking Dutch, I do not use grammar rules and rely exclusively on my "innate feeling" for the language. Note that my own "deemphasizing" of grammar rules for Dutch is unrelated to the fact that Dutch (as a typical Western-European culture) is predominantly analytic in nature. For a foreign language like German or English, I do need grammar, and experience shows that on a conscious level (where one can formulate and discuss things) I know more about German and English grammar than many native German or English speakers (who do not need grammar for their own native languages). Conversely, I'd assume that the few people learning Dutch as a foreign language would probably know more about Dutch grammar than I do. My question is: To which degree are we confounding this "innate language feeling" factor for native speakers with the tendency of the "holistic reasoning" approach to deemphasize grammar rules?
That is: Is our assessment that Japanese is by nature a "holistic thinking style" language correct, or are we merely being confused by the fact that native Japanese speakers do not really NEED grammar themselves? I'm not intending here to accuse anyone of a lack of knowledge, I only want to eliminate a factor that could conceivably skew our analysis.
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Please take into mind that the abstract thinking you mentioned is not for everyone.
Of course. That is very obvious. Learning styles differ significantly between people, so I do understand that the analytic style is probably not at all helpful for some people (and I guess it might even cause some people to get confused and get onto wrong tracks).
However, I want to state that the reverse may also be true: namely, here in "the West" there exists a significant number of analytic thinkers, to whom the analytic learning style comes naturally, and who (like me) have the reverse difficulty, namely who have difficulty with and get confused by the "holistic" learning style. Working directly from a large set of concrete examples (each complete with a concrete context) and without much use of models and theories is really quite difficult for me, and the "holistic" approach positively confuses me (which was the cause for me mistakenly having gotten so upset with the Moderators for which I'd like to apologize).
It is now clear to me that the style in the language threads in this forum is strongly oriented toward the "holistic" learning style. Maybe to some extent this is only fitting, since "holistic" seems to be the Japanese culture, and in view of the thesis that the Japanese language uses a "holistic" thought pattern.
It is very clear that our esteemed Moderators on this forum are very concerned that analytic stuff may confuse people. Maybe to a certain degree that is fitting and correct. If it is true that learning Japanese, by the nature of the language, implies a necessity to absorb a degree of holistic thinking, then it follows that it seems correct that the language threads put a RELATIVELY larger emphasis on the holistic learning style than on the analytic learning style. However, for my taste I still feel that the holistic style is slightly too aggressively policed on this forum -- I feel that with my analytic preference I do not really belong here, and I'll probably go looking for other forums on which the analytic learning style is less strongly deprecated. It's a question of balance. Even if it is logical that the holistic approach should be preferred, then it still does not follow that the analytic viewpoint should be completely suppressed. Think of the significant precentage of analytic thinkers among the Westerners learning the Japanese language. For these people, I think a forum that exhibits some small degree of understanding of their way of thinking seems more helpful than a forum that seeks to "completely suppress" any form of analytic thinking. This is because communication needs to come from both sides: it is bridge building. The goal is to bridge between A (English) and B (Japanese). All I am saying is that, however much it is fitting and correct that the target language (B) receives the emphasis, despite this the bridge needs to connect not only with B, but also with A.
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With best regards,
Menno ( メンノー )