Academic Learning Compact - East Asian Languages and Literatures

The major in East Asian languages and literatures, with specialization in Chinese or Japanese, enables you to achieve language proficiency in Chinese or Japanese. Through study of literature, film, culture and linguistics, you gain knowledge of literary and historical genres, systems of thought and language structure and use. Emphasis is on cultivating your ability to assemble arguments from literary or media texts, and to analyze patterns in language. You will learn to locate and use reference tools and to demonstrate the ability to communicate independent, critical perspectives.

Additional information is available from your major's website.

Before Graduating You Must

• Pass either the Chinese STAMP Proficiency Test Level 4, the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 3 or the equivalent by the end of the second semester of the third-year language course.
• Achieve satisfactory faculty evaluation of a self-selected term paper written for an upper-division course or senior thesis.
• Complete requirements for the baccalaureate degree, as determined by faculty.

Skills You Will Acquire in the Major (SLOs)

1. Proficiency in either Chinese or Japanese in the third year of language study.
2. Distinguish literary genres and define basic historical genres in East Asian literature; or identify formal patterns of sound and syntax in Chinese or Japanese and know the social patterns of language use in context.
3. Analyze meaning based on genre attributes.
4. Identify strategies for assembling arguments from literary or media texts; or isolate patterns in linguistic data and apply frameworks toward their analysis.
5. Know how to locate and use reference tools to add an independent perspective to critical arguments.
6. Identify premises in your argument, judiciously handle materials and effectively communicate independent, critical perspectives in oral or written form.