Asia Institute - Research Publications

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Author: Ohashi, Jun × Start date: 2008 ×

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    What motivates Japanese language learners in Australia and beyond?
    Ohashi, H ; Ohashi, J (Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2023)
    Language is an interactive, social, and relational tool that is constantly evolving; reflecting the history, values, and socio-cultural context of the place in which it is spoken. Thus, each individual language provides learners with opportunities to interact with other users of the language and to access different perspectives. We question the common promotional discourses of ‘employability’ and ‘international trade’ used to characterise the value given to Asian languages by policymakers and universities in Australia. We argue that such discourses do not reflect learners’ motivations, ultimately undermining the potential educational values of language learning.
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    Why did Australia lose international students to Canada?: Trends in Chinese students explained by numbers and their real voices
    Ohashi, J (Society for Oceanian Education Studies, 2022-11-01)
    This paper attends to the voices of individual students, not the numerical "Chinese students" spoken of in statistics and other media, i.e., not the main source of income for the Australian higher education export industry, but as voices of students as individuals with their own personalities. While there are many studies and reports that quantify the impact of the pandemic on Australia's education export industry, few focus on the voices of actual international students. This paper presents the actual voices of Chinese international students, including what they have experienced, the choices they have had to make, and the emotions they have felt as a result of the pandemic. While the number of international students in countries such as Canada and the UK has been on the rise since late 2020, the number of students coming to Australia remains stagnant. The paper explores the reasons for this through the voices of Chinese students, which reveal a fundamental problem that Australia needs to face. It revisits what international students mean to Australia and re-examines the role of higher education institutions.
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    Dire straits: Chinese students in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic
    Ohashi, J (Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2022)
    This article examines the experiences of Chinese students after Australia closed its national border on March 20, 2020 in an attempt to stop COVID-19 entering.
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    Natural Conversation Reconstruction Tasks: The Language Classroom as a Meeting Place
    Ohashi, J (University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), 2009)
    This paper, drawing on Pratt’s notion of ‘transculturation’ and Bhabha’s ‘third space’, presents an example of language learning tasks that empower learners’ agency and promote their cross-cultural awareness and sensitivities to a different set of cultural expectations, using a naturally occurred Japanese thanking episodes. The paper discusses the merits of Natural Conversation Reconstruction Tasks (NCRTs) as a practical method for helping L2 learners develop this ‘intercultural competence’. It is based on a qualitative study of the results of one NCRT created for use in the context of teaching Japanese as a L2 in a multicultural society. It suggests the NCRT encourages the learners to explore the intersection where language use, speaker intention and L1 and L2 cultural norms meet. Such a process helps the learners become aware of socially expected patterns of communication in L1 and L2 in terms of the choices of speech act, formulaic expressions, sequential organization and politeness orientation. The learners’ comments suggest that the NCRT helps learners transcend their cultural boundaries by overcoming their narrow understanding of ‘thanking’ as ‘expressions of gratitude and appreciation’ and by cross-culturally widening their views of what counts as thanking. The NCRT with rich contextual information promotes the learners’ intercultural awareness, sensitivity to context and intercultural exploration in the space between L1 and L2, where they have authority and freedom of making sense of conversations, and pragmatics is fully integrated into language pedagogy.
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    Learning Asian languages is about much more than trade and employability and universities should convey this
    Ohashi, J ; Ohashi, H (Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2021-08-16)
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    MxA transcripts with distinct first exons and modulation of gene expression levels by single-nucleotide polymorphisms in human bronchial epithelial cells.
    Noguchi, S ; Hijikata, M ; Hamano, E ; Matsushita, I ; Ito, H ; Ohashi, J ; Nagase, T ; Keicho, N (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2013-02)
    Myxovirus resistance A (MxA) is a major interferon (IFN)-inducible antiviral protein. Promoter single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of MxA near the IFN-stimulated response element (ISRE) have been frequently associated with various viral diseases, including emerging respiratory infections. We investigated the expression profile of MxA transcripts with distinct first exons in human bronchial epithelial cells. For primary culture, the bronchial epithelium was isolated from lung tissues with different genotypes, and total RNA was subjected to real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. The previously reported MxA transcript (T1) and a recently registered transcript with a distinct 5' first exon (T0) were identified. IFN-β and polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid induced approximately 100-fold higher expression of the T1 transcript than that of the T0 transcript, which also had a potential ISRE motif near its transcription start site. Even without inducers, the T1 transcript accounted for approximately two thirds of the total expression of MxA, levels of which were significantly associated with its promoter and exon 1 SNPs (rs17000900, rs2071430, and rs464138). Our results suggest that MxA observed in respiratory viral infections is possibly dominated by the T1 transcript and partly influenced by relevant 5' SNPs.
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    Elucidating the origin of HLA-B*73 allelic lineage: Did modern humans benefit by archaic introgression?
    Yasukochi, Y ; Ohashi, J (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2017-01)
    A previous study reported that some of the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles and haplotypes in present-day humans were acquired by admixture with archaic humans; specifically, an exceptionally diverged HLA-B*73 allele was proposed to be transmitted from Denisovans, although the DNA sequence of HLA-B*73 has not been detected in the Denisovan genome. Here, we argue against the hypothesis that HLA-B*73 introgressed from Denisovans into early modern humans. A phylogenetic analysis revealed that HLA-B*73:01 formed a monophyletic group with a chimpanzee MHC-B allele, strongly suggesting that the HLA-B*73 allelic lineage has been maintained in humans as well as in chimpanzees since the divergence of humans and chimpanzees. The global distribution of HLA-B*73 allele showed that the population frequency of HLA-B*73 in west Asia (0.24 %)-a possible site of admixture with Denisovans-is lower than that in Europe (0.72 %) and in south Asia (0.69 %). Furthermore, HLA-B*73 is not observed in Melanesia even though the Melanesian genome contains the highest proportion of Denisovan ancestry in present-day human populations. Single nucleotide polymorphisms in HLA-A*11-HLA-C*12:02 or HLA-A*11-C*15 haplotypes, one of which was assumed to be transmitted together with HLA-B*73 from Denisovans by the study of Abi-Rached and colleagues, were not differentiated from those in other HLA-A-C haplotypes in modern humans. These results do not support the introgression hypothesis. Thus, we conclude that it is highly likely that HLA-B*73 allelic lineage has been maintained in the direct ancestors of modern humans.
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    Genetic evidence for contribution of human dispersal to the genetic diversity of EBA-175 in Plasmodium falciparum.
    Yasukochi, Y ; Naka, I ; Patarapotikul, J ; Hananantachai, H ; Ohashi, J (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2015-08-01)
    BACKGROUND: The 175-kDa erythrocyte binding antigen (EBA-175) of Plasmodium falciparum plays a crucial role in merozoite invasion into human erythrocytes. EBA-175 is believed to have been under diversifying selection; however, there have been no studies investigating the effect of dispersal of humans out of Africa on the genetic variation of EBA-175 in P. falciparum. METHODS: The PCR-direct sequencing was performed for a part of the eba-175 gene (regions II and III) using DNA samples obtained from Thai patients infected with P. falciparum. The divergence times for the P. falciparum eba-175 alleles were estimated assuming that P. falciparum/Plasmodium reichenowi divergence occurred 6 million years ago (MYA). To examine the possibility of diversifying selection, nonsynonymous and synonymous substitution rates for Plasmodium species were also estimated. RESULTS: A total of 32 eba-175 alleles were identified from 131 Thai P. falciparum isolates. Their estimated divergence time was 0.13-0.14 MYA, before the exodus of humans from Africa. A phylogenetic tree for a large sequence dataset of P. falciparum eba-175 alleles from across the world showed the presence of a basal Asian-specific cluster for all P. falciparum sequences. A markedly more nonsynonymous substitutions than synonymous substitutions in region II in P. falciparum was also detected, but not within Plasmodium species parasitizing African apes, suggesting that diversifying selection has acted specifically on P. falciparum eba-175. CONCLUSIONS: Plasmodium falciparum eba-175 genetic diversity appeared to increase following the exodus of Asian ancestors from Africa. Diversifying selection may have played an important role in the diversification of eba-175 allelic lineages. The present results suggest that the dispersals of humans out of Africa influenced significantly the molecular evolution of P. falciparum EBA-175.