Onna Rashiku (Like a Woman): The Diary of a Language Learner in Japan [Paperback]

Karen Ogulnick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 13, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0791438945 | ISBN-13: 978-0791438947

This book bridges theories of feminism and second language acquisition. Karen Ogulnick examines the dialectic between language learning and identity in this original and interdisciplinary book. Combining autobiographical reflections with a scholarly analysis of a diary she kept while learning Japanese in Hiroshima, her book offers rich insight into the complex interplay between gender, race, culture, social class, historical experiences, and language learning.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Finely observed details make the complexities of the language/culture learning process more vivid here than in any other book I've ever read. It helps to make clear how much is involved in attempting to master a second language, and, particularly to be able to use it in that culture. Properly understood, this book could revolutionize foreign/second language teaching." -- John S. Mayher, New York University

"One of the most memorable aspects of Onna Rashiku (like a Woman) is the power of the writing. I was struck by the openness of the writer, the richness of her details, and the vividness of her descriptions. I was so interested in the writer's experiences that there were times when I literally could not put down the book. Ogulnick does a remarkable job of analyzing her powerful diary entries and uncovering insights about the complex relationships between language learning, gender, culture, and identity. She provides the reader with fresh perceptions and understanding about the impact of Japanese language learning on her own view of herself, her identity as a Jewish woman, and her cultural identity as an American." -- Lynn Becker Haber, Southern Connecticut State University

About the Author

Karen Ogulnick is Assistant Professor and Director of Programs of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Bilingual Education at C. W. Post College, Long Island University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 174 pages
• Publisher: State University of New York Press (August 13, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791438945
• ISBN-13: 978-0791438947
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,822,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Jack of All Trades (Master of None), May 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Onna Rashiku (Like a Woman): The Diary of a Language Learner in Japan (Paperback)

Self-contemplation is a curse/That makes an old confusion worse.--T. Roethke

The author's intense scrutiny of journal passages, meant to elucidate and improve, ostensibly, second- or foreign-language teaching methods, and to promote empathy among teachers/students, is repetitive, heavy-handed, and biased. Make no mistake: the author does have several good insights which could have practical applications on teaching/learning methods. They are just too few and rather unoriginal for this reader to rate the book higher.

The key to this book is on pg. 109, far too late: "I was still operating from a place of only partial knowledge. While I had acquired more tools with which to interpret the culture, I was undoubtedly still actively misinterpreting situations, since I was reading things from a different cultural perspective." From this awareness comes a main insight: "I have arrived at a new understanding of the importance of trying to understand a language learner's cultural resistance"(pg. 143). Yet at times these insights apply almost only to the author; she doesn't "cut much slack" for her conversation partners in practice.

For example, early in the book, she categorizes Keio as a "clone" in a blue business suit(pg. 36); she is aware that "her ability... to make pre-determined judgements of people...[obscures her]from seeing things beneath the surface(pg. 35). She even ponders reverse-sexism and prejudice, briefly, on her part (pg. 72). Yet, functioning foremost in a perona of Oppressed Woman, her interpretation of things is one-sided or self-deluding: "The fact that people are not only noticed for wearing red dresses but are'laughed' at signals an alarm that people (women) are supposed to look a certain way so as not to call attention to their self-hood"(pg. 69). The author does not pause to wonder if Keio was thrilled to wear his "clone" outfit, and might not feel similarly oppressed, thwarted from calling attention to his self-hood.

The author also shows bias in an experience with Akemi, a female tutor. The author is irked by Akemi's frequent tardiness to lessons. Akemi writes an apology, leaves a gift. The author writes: "This leads me to wonder if my anger frightened her. Perhaps the directness and tone in which I expressed myself represented male anger--which she described as 'scary.'(pg. 75) The author misses at least 2 important points: perhaps Akemi simply felt badly; and if Akemi was indeed frightened, it was by FEMALE anger. To define anger as "male" is one of pedantic feminism's worst errors and deceits.

The author makes generalizations and unmediated statements that jar when compared to the fastidious scrutiny of mundane personal interactions. For example: "Intimacy may be used as a way for a person in power to allow another to open up or feel comfortable; however, the person being controlled may feel vulnerable, since her personal information can be used against her"(pg. 80). The use of "controlled" in this context is gratuitous and heavy-handed, as is the imagining of a female "victim."

It is hard to know what to make of the author's self-assessment "as a fairly high-functioning speaker"(pg. 44), given the numerous errors of some of the most common Japanese words and phrases. This reduces her credibility (had she never checked a dictionary? had a good proof-reader?), as does her short bibliography, half of which dates from the '70s and '80s. Yet the index is extensive (and unintentionally amusing), with entries for the most obscure details, while in the text, for example, she writes that in Japan "cultural ideology elevates the status of written over spoken forms of language"(pg. 46), with no further discussion or reference to seminal works on the validity (or not) of this statement.

I would recommend this book only to those who are willing to read with muscular clear-sightedness, who have critical faculties not cowed or confused by jargon and political correctness, and who have the patience to extract the good and useful from unwieldy texts.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Honest and Insightful Investigation, April 20, 2000

By 

Robert Stribley (NY, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Onna Rashiku (Like a Woman): The Diary of a Language Learner in Japan (Paperback)

Ostensibly a book bridging "theories of feminism and second language acquisition" (as its cover explains) Karen Ogulnick's Onna Rashiku (Like a Woman) is an often intimate, always sensitive investigation into the way we use language. Furthermore, it's a subtle examination of one woman's life spent in an alien nation and her interactions with its inhabitants.

Karen Ogulnick left New York City in 1993 to teach English in Japan. She spent several months teaching there and learning Japanese, and the experience obviously proved richly rewarding for her.

Ogulnick mines her diary entries-written during her stay-with an honest eye, digging beneath words spoken between friends, students and coworkers to reveal the presumptions, the preferences, the politics at work among these people. She examines how we use language to interact with those around us, whether those individuals be foreigners or compatriots, the same sex or the opposite sex.

Ms. Ogulnick chronicles her experiences in Japan with steadfast transparency, always taking care to examine her own motives and predispositions as well as those of others. She is careful to inform her readers of her own background and prior experiences as a child and in prior travels, so we will understand her reactions to that which unfolds around her. She understands that whatever we say and do is influenced by our prior experience but chooses to pursue objectivity as closely as possible by helping us to understand her, so we can evaluate her reactions for ourselves.

Onna Rashiku is more than a study of language learning in Japan; it's a compassionate and insightful understanding of how individuals interact in cultures both foreign and familiar to them.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, March 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Onna Rashiku (Like a Woman): The Diary of a Language Learner in Japan (Paperback)

I really liked the sound of this book and looked forward to reading it. Sad to say, I found it humourless and repetitive, and all so terribly obvious. For someone who has spent so much time in Japan studying Japanese, it's amazing how much of the author's transliteration of Japanese into romaji is incorrect. This is distracting and irritating. This was a great idea for a book, I really wish it had been better.