參與2014日本語言科學學會年度大會出國報告書

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國立成功大學

邁向頂尖大學計畫出國案報告書

報告名稱：參與“2014 日本語言科學學會年度大會＂出國報告書

出國期間：2014/06/26-2014/07/03

經費來源：邁向頂尖大學計畫經費

單位：外國語言文學系

職稱：博士生

姓名：劉晉廷

中華民國 103 年 07 月 15 日

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中文及英文摘要

中文摘要:

本報告的主旨是要和大家分享本人本次出國參與日本語言科學學會於日本琦玉縣 Bunkyo University 所舉辦的 2014 年度大會與會心得。根據我本次及之前多次出國參與國際會議的經驗，

我會比較此次會議和之前參與過的會議的同與異。同時，我也會提出會議主辦單位從會前準備到會議當日我所觀察到的優點。我也觀察到當地出席的聽眾對於發表內容非常有熱忱、參與動機也很強烈。最後我提出了一些建議，希望日後如果有機會舉辦國際會議，我們能從他人身上學習到優點。

English Abstract:

The primary purpose of this report is to share what I have experienced during the days I participated the annual conference held by the Japanese Society for Language Sciences at Bunkyo University, Koshigaya Campus, Sitama, Japan. I will describe the differences and sameness among the conferences I have participated worldwide. I also provide some merits pertaining to this conference, from the pre-preparation work to the conference days. Additionally, based on my observation, I find that the attendees’ attitude is passionate and their motivation in participating the conference is strong. Finally, I provide some suggestions for ourselves if we intend to hold a better conference in the future.

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Purpose, Process, Reflection and Suggestion

Purpose:

The purpose of this report is to share my experience in participating the 16 the annual international conference of the Japanese Society for Language Sciences (JSLS2014). The conference was held by Bunkyo University, Koshigaya Campus, Sitama, Japan. Sitama is not located in the suburb area in Japan.

However, distance does not impede the audience from attending the conference, indicating how hard-working they are. Bearing this impressive fact in mind, I decided to compare this conference with the previous ones I have attended all over the world, including the ones held in Taiwan, Japan, New Zealand and Germany. Specifically, I will show differences in terms of the preparation work, their thoughtfulness when holding the conference and the attitude of the participants.

Process and Reflection:

The committee of the conference set up a clear guideline for interested contributors and followed the rule they provided. For instance, a lot of conferences failed to notify the contributors about the results of their submissions by the time indicated in their official website. Even they knew that the schedule was delayed, they seemed to take that as granted and did not notify the submitters. This was not the case for this conference. They always sent the letter of acceptance/rejection prior to the set-up notification date.

In fact, I also joined the JSLS2012 and for both years, they notified us about the results of reviewing on time.

The conference always provided a clear guideline for us to follow. They sent a document with detailed and clear instruction about the format of the handbook. They clear stated that each presenter had four pages of space for the handbook and no exception could be granted. When I got the handbook, I especially checked it and it was true that the maximum pages each presenter had were four. They even sent emails clearly indicating the version of the PowerPoint that would be installed in the computer.

Although I was a paper presenter, I also paid attention to the rules for poster presenters. The committee provided both horizontal and vertical boards for those presenters, depending on their preferences.

What’s more, the pins, tapes and magnets were ready for them. That reminded me of one experience I had when I was presenting my poster in a foreign conference. Upon knowing that I was going to present a poster in the conference, I wrote an e-mail to make sure that I could get a vertical board and some pins.

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The organizer replied by making sure that I would have what I had required. Unfortunately, they did not provide the things I specified in the e-mail on that day. More importantly, the size of the board was significantly smaller than the size they indicated in the website. These two experiences clearly showed the obvious contrasts in terms of the pre-conference preparation work. Another excellent thing about this conference was the control of the time. When the presentation time was up, the moderator immediately stopped the presenter and proceeded to the question section. In my view, I think what is more essential about attending a conference is not only presenting, but also exchanging ideas with peers. In my previous experiences, a lot of moderators did not stop the presenters when they used up the time. As a consequence, audience did not have enough time to express their ideas or ask questions for clarifications.

On the contrary, this conference allowed us to hear more from the audience.

The audience of the conference was awesome. To be honest, during the process of my schooling in Taiwan, I encountered the following experience many times. At the very beginning of a class meeting, the instructor of the course announced that she/he would not lecture on the day. Instead, the whole class had to attend a specific conference or speech due to the fact that the attendees were few. However, that was less likely to be the case in Japan. Take JSLS2014 for instance, most of the attendees did not look like students from a specific class. There were about 40 attendees for each parallel section. The number might not be high; however, I could know that they were all interested and highly participated in the presentation because they didn’t hesitate asking questions. For my presentation alone, six questions were asked from six individuals. They provided numerous insights from a wide range of perspectives, which I myself alone could not come up with if I kept doing research alone. After my presentation, an international scholar came and provided more detailed experiences of hers and gave me her business card. This opens a chance for me to cooperate with international researchers in the future. This demonstrates a great advantage of attending international conferences. That is, if we keep doing research by our own without exchanging opinions and receiving some constructive comments, suggestions and questions from others, the chance for us to compose high-quality, well-accepted research remains low.

The committee is thoughtful. In order to apply for this traveling fund, I had to obtain the official invitation from the committee. Although the committee had clearly stated in the website that they did not provide the official invitation, the committee generously sent an official invitation to me after I

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explained my situation. The committee was flexible and was always willing to help.

The invited keynote speakers of this conference provided clear insights and thoughtful questions for future research. For me, one of the greatest benefits of joining a conference is that I could get in touch with the latest trend in a specific research field. The conference invited not only both opening and closing plenary speakers, but also the “presidential address”. This presidential address is new for the JSLS. The committee was planning to make this as a custom in the future conferences.

Suggestions:

As I have discussed above, attending this conference provided me numerous benefits. Based on what I have observed, I would like to provide following suggestions if we have a chance to run an international conference in the future.

1. Be punctual.

Whenever we set up a due date, we should try our best to achieve the goal before the time. If some unexpected incidents happened, we should send an e-mail to the affected parties. In terms of the presentation, we should bear in mind that the purpose of holding the conference is to exchange the ideas. Therefore, we must conserve the question time, allowing audience to exchange their thoughts with speakers.

2. Be flexible.

The purpose of setting up rules is to help everything go through smoothly. However, this does not imply that we should always stick to the rules without any degree of tolerance of flexibility. If the proposed issue does not harm the major principles, we should try our best to help.

3. Be thoughtful and pay attention to details.

As I have shown earlier, the committee was thoughtful and paid attention to various details. When we run a conference, we should stand on the others’ perspectives and try our best to reduce the barriers they may encounter when they were trying to cooperate with us. A tiny action or announcement may show them how much we cared about them.

4. Show our identity.

The school can help professors and students design and layout business cards for us to exchange with international scholars.

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Hopefully, if I have a chance to run a conference in the future, I could be as careful as the organizer of JSLS2014.

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Appendix

Photos

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