SYSTEMATIZING JAPANESE STYLE SOCIAL WORK COMMUNICATION AND A SEARCH FOR A NEW EDUCATIONAL METHOD

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We conducted a three-year research on Japanese social work communication, with a particular interest in finding a style of communication that can fit Japanese culture and society, and Japanese social work environment, and we looked into some possibility of developing new educational methods in social work communication.As a result of the collaboration between a social work researcher and a linguist, we were able to present, in our research report, a new research framework and a new perspective, and we analyzed social work communication that takes place in actual work places regarding day-to-day interactions between clients and workers. We also proposed some new methodology of educating students studying social work, particularly the use of training methods developed in cross-cultural communication training. More specifically, communication studies in social work in Japan tended to lean heavily towards Western style communication based on counseling theories. In our research, we looked into the possibilities of using analytical methods developed in linguistics, pragmatics and sociolinguistics as well as counseling methods. Up to present, Japanese social work communication studies dealt primarily with the client and the counselor in helping situations. In our study, as mentioned above, the conversation between workers and clients on the one hand, and exchange of comments by helpers and social workers on the other, were used as research materials.