An Anthropological Inquiry into the Cultures of the Hard-Of-Hearing and of the Deaf in Japan

本研究旨在探讨日本少数民族重听人和聋人的文化形态。特别关注他们如何与社会主流互动，以及主流社会对他们的对待。日本西部地区，即关西地区和九州北部正在进行研究。选择这些地区的原因很简单，研究人员对他们很熟悉。本研究采用访谈法进行数据收集，在收集数据的过程中，研究人员意识到重听者和聋人之间存在着明确的区别。这不是他自己预料到的那种事情。因此，他重新组织了自己的研究计划，以便将更多的注意力放在重听人身上，而不是聋人身上。究其原因，有几个方面的原因：一是从人类学的角度对日本的聋人进行的研究还不多，因此对其还知之甚少(尽管在研究者开始这项研究时已经出现了一些关于日本聋人文化的著作)。另一个原因是，研究人员在学习日本手语(JSL)方面遇到了困难，JSL是研究这类语言的基本要素之一。到目前为止，他们已经收集了个人历史并进行了分析。由于这类数据包含许多个人事务和隐私，研究人员在处理这些数据时自然非常谨慎和谨慎。这给研究结果的出版造成了一些困难，当然，令人遗憾的是。然而，这位研究人员预计在未来几个月内会发表几篇论文。

The purpose of this study is to explore the cultural patterns of the hard-of-hearing and the Deaf as minorities in Japan. The special attention is being paid on how they interact with the mainstream of the society and the treatment of the mainstream society towards them.The research is being undertaken in the Western parts of Japan, namely Kansai area and the northern part of Kyushu. The reason for choosing these areas is very simple ; the researcher is familiar to them. The interview method is being used for data collection in the research.In the process of collecting data, the researcher came to realize that there is a clear distinction made and to be made between the hard-of-hearing and the Deaf. This was not a kind of the thing he himself had expected. Therefore, he re-orgarnized his research plan so that he would pay more of his attention on the hard-of-hearing rather than the Deaf. There are several reasons for this ; one is that there have not been many studies done on the hard-of-hearing in Japan from the anthropological perspectives and therefore much is yet to be known about them (although some works had appeared on the Deaf culture in Japan by the time the researcher started this study). Another reason is that the researcher has had difficulties in learning the Japanese Sign Language (JSL), one of the essentials for the study of this kind.So far personal histories have been collected and being analysed. Because this kind of data contain many personal matters and privacies, the researcher is, naturally enough, very nurvous and careful in dealing with them. This has caused several difficulties in the publications of the study results, regrettable to say, of course. However, the researcher expects to produce several papers in months to come.