Foreword

Abstract

Here is the first issue of the new journal, Acta Linguistica Asiatica, published by the Department of Asian and African Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. Its appearance is approximately timed to commemorate the 15 years since the establishment of the Department on October 1st, 1995. In step with the developments in media and new modes of dissemination of the results of scholarly research, it is introduced as an on-line electronic publication.

In the past 15 years, Asian Studies which were initially represented by Chinese and Japanese Studies, seem to have established a firm foothold in Slovenia. In addition to the existing Chinese Studies and Japanese Studies, the University of Ljubljana introduced in December 2010 new academic areas of Turkish Studies, Iranian Studies, Indian Studies and Korean Studies, thus giving green light to the establishment of  systematic research of Asian issues within  a wider framework.

In the meantime, the body of researchers specializing in Asian languages has also grown, including teachers, visiting professors, researchers and graduate students who cover a wide spectrum of research fields.

Also, the recent reform of higher education along the Bologna guidelines, although criticized, has happily brought into existence the interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Humanities and Social Sciences and within its fold, the joint Doctoral program in Linguistics.

The Journal Acta Linguistica Asiatica is thus emerging in a period of lively ferment, where unifying the field of discourse within language studies and at the same time opening it more widely to research in humanities and social sciences will undoubtedly have a long term impact on Asian language research at the University of Ljubljana.

Serving as a focal point of research on Asian languages in Slovenia, Acta Linguistica Asiatica will at the same time strive to promote cooperation in the field of Asian language research internationally in Europe, Asia and beyond.

Acta Linguistica Asiatica will, following Roman Jakobson’s saying, “Linguista sum, linguistici nihil a me alienum puto”, cover all the subject areas and theoretical approaches pertaining to theoretical and applied research on Asian languages. An international editorial board takes care of the research quality of the journal.

The contents of the first issue reflect this orientation and openness. Three papers deal with various aspects of the role played by language in the process of modernization during and after Meiji Japan, i.e., The Relation Between the View on the Language and Educational Ideology in the Early Meiji Period in Japan Through the Discourse of Regionalism by Ichimiya Yufuko, Towards Theoretical Approach to the Understanding of Language Ideologies in Post-Meiji Japan by Luka Culiberg, and Images of Pre-WW II: National Language Policies as Reflected in the Field of “National Language Studies” Itself by Andrej Bekeš.

Another focus of interest is philological, represented by two papers. One is Morphology and Syntax in Holes and Scratches: The Latest Stage of Kugyol Research, an interesting research on kugyol, a system devised to facilitate reading Chinese Buddhist texts in Korean, by Lee Yong. The other,The Typology of Āmreḍita Compounds in the Ṛgveda by Tamara Ditrich, investigates āmreḍita compounds in the Ṛgveda, a type of coordinative nominal constructions, closely related to dvandva compounds.

Finally, this issue is concluded with the article Collocational Relations in Japanese Language Textbooks and Computer-assisted Language Learning Resources, by Irena Srdanović and deals with the teaching of collocations in modern Japanese, based on corpora.

Andrej Bekeš
University of Ljubljana and University of Tsukuba

April 23, 2011