Books

Assumptions about language, language learning, and language learners affect the design of language textbooks and classroom practices. Three main chapters in this monograph explore the gap between how language is represented in textbooks versus how …

My aim in this book is not to redefine ‘Standard Korean’ but rather to delineate which speakers the current study is dealing with, and clarify how they will be sampled. As shown in above definitions …

Manga from the Floating World is the first full-length study in English of the kibyôshi, a genre of sophisticated pictorial fiction widely read in late-eighteenth-century Japan. By combining analysis of the socioeconomic and historical milieus …

To discuss the supernatural in China is “to talk of foxes and speak of ghosts.” Ming and Qing China were well populated with foxes, shape-changing creatures who transgressed the boundaries of species, gender, and the …

Discourse and Politeness examines Japanese institutional discourse and attempts to clarify the relationship between politeness, facework and speaker identity. The book seeks to establish an empirically grounded analysis of facework as the basis for evaluating …

Throughout the history of Buddhism, few philosophers have attained the stature of Dharmakirti, the “Lord of Reason” who has influenced virtually every systematic Buddhist thinker since his time. Dharmakirti’s renowned works, written in India during …

The eleventh-century masterpiece The Tale of Genji casts a long shadow across the literary terrain of the Heian period (794-1185). It has dominated critical and popular reception of Heian literary production and become the definitive …

In ayurvedic medical practice, the ways in which and the reasons why people become ill are often explained with stories. This book explores the forms and functions of narrative in Āyurveda, India’s classical medical system. …

According to Newar Buddhists, Sakyamuni Buddha returned to his birthplace, Lumbini, after his enlightenment. Visual representations of his journey and visit to Lumbini date back to at least the seventeenth century and became especially popular …

In The Grand Scribe’s Records: Volume X, readers can follow Ssu-ma Qian’s depiction of the later years of the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han (r. 140–87 BC). The volume begins with four chapters …