The paper aims to identify place names in illustration titles in John Nieuhoff’s An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham Emperour of China (English in 1669, Dutch in 1665). Nieuhoff’s text was very popular with the 17th century European public. After its first publication in Dutch it was translated into French, German, Latin and English and reprinted fourteen times in many European countries. In particular, his illustrations were highly appreciated because they provided realistic and vivid images of China to Europeans at a time when there had been little information about China. It had a great influence on the fever for Chinese style in Europe in the 18th century. Nieuhoff’s illustrations were frequently applied to everyday painted objects such as furniture, screens, wallpaper, textiles, and dishes. About 80% of illustrations present scenery in the area where the Dutch embassy anchored or passed by on their journey from Guangdong to Beijing. However, the place names which were transliterated into Dutch and other European languages are a major obstacle for following Nieuhoff’s travelogue. It is not easy to infer the Chinese regional names from either the Dutch or the English text. Therefore, the paper identifies Chinese regions in the text by mainly comparing Nieuhoff’s information and transliteration with Martino Martini’s Novus Atlas Sinensis (1655).

This study examines the interactional dynamics revealed through teasing humor in the context of a startup business meeting. Using a quasi-conversation analytic approach to details of talk, as well as ethnographic information concerning the community of practice, this study aims to illuminate the construction of professional identities shown in members' participation in teasing humor. The dataset consists of three video-recorded weekly business meetings of a startup (210 minutes) and a supplementary interview and observation notes. The analyses show that, in this business context, the members' identities (e.g., the CEO, the co-founders versus non-co-founders) were revealed in the dynamics of participation in teasing humor. Teasing humor was also found to contribute to finding creative solutions to challenging issues under discussion. The non-co-founders, in particular, found opportunities to participate in the major business discourse through this teasing. By participating in the teasing segments, they were able to present themselves as legitimate members of the startup. The findings are discussed to highlight the sociolinguistic norms of a professional community in creating a constructive business culture.

The present study attempts to provide empirical and qualitative evidence to support the feasibility of rubric-referenced self-assessment to promote learning in a Korean high school EFL context. Over four rubric-referenced self-assessment lessons, with the help of a teacher’s instructions, students wrote a first draft and assessed it using a scoring rubric. Drawing on this self-assessment, they wrote a second draft, also followed by a self-assessment as well as a self-assessment diary. As quantitative data, the scores of the first draft of the first class were compared with those of the second draft of the fourth class. Survey questionnaires, interviews, self-assessment diaries, and essay self-assessments served as qualitative data. The findings are, first, rubric-referenced self-assessment showed positive effects on students’ writing quality. Second, students came to perceive the effectiveness of rubric-referenced self-assessment. Lastly, rubric-referenced self-assessment positively influenced students’ learning strategies and attitudes. These results imply that rubric-referenced self-assessment promotes learning in a Korean high school EFL context, leading students to become self-regulated learners that take responsibility for their own learning.

Kim, Jeongyeon, & Choi, Jinsook. 2014. University Administrative Workers' Perceptions of the Workplace Context under English as an Official Language Policy. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 22(2), 1-22. This study aims to examine how university administrative workers perceive the workplace context under English as an official language policy, and further how their perceptions of the context would correlate with the roles of English uses for work. The data came from the questionnaire responses of 116 employees of a Korean university and qualitative interviews with 6 administrative workers. Descriptive and correlation analyses showed that the participants' evaluation of three contextual factors, i.e., English as an official language policy, online English learning, and coworkers' English competence, was only moderate. In the self-evaluation of their English proficiency, the majority of the participants indicated that they were only able to participate in a short English dialogs, but had difficulty with English discussions. A striking difference was found in the evaluation of significance of English skills between their current work performance and under full execution of the policy. Although most of the participants ranked reading skill the most significant in their current work performances, they selected speaking as the most crucial skill under the full execution of the policy. Implications of the findings are presented for more efficient practices of English as an official language policy at work. (195)