Tutor profile: Anne I.

Can you explain the usage of honorifics?

Like all language, Japanese reflects the culture of its country of origin. Japan has a well-integrated cultural tradition of respect for one's seniors, superiors, and elders. Japanese reflects this with the use of certain prefixes, suffixes, verb forms and conjugations. Suffixes for names and titles can be used to indicate your relationship to the person and level of formality with them, as well their age in relation to you. The verb form when you speak to someone of higher status can also be dependent on these factors. Though not as common as the other uses of honorifics, one example is the case of noun prefixes. Some words that are significant within Japanese culture are denoted by an honorific prefix. For example, it is typical to address your parents with respect using the prefix お、as in お母さん, which also has an honorific suffix of -さん. A good rule of thumb is that words with a Japanese origin, or kun-reading, use prefix お while words with a Chinese origin, or on-reading, use prefix ご、like in ご両親。

What elements would you include in planning an essay or a short story?

I tend to approach essays and stories in a similar fashion. With any piece of writing, you can start with the big picture and develop some major plot points, or jot down some notable arguments. Either way, you have a topic and you add to it with supporting evidence, whether that be in the form of narrative details in a story or anecdotes for your opinions in an essay. Slowly but surely the outline will fill up. It is then up to the writer to take this mess of ideas and rearrange it, much like a florist does to create a bouquet. Moreover, you are always crafting a piece of writing through your own looking glass, and so it naturally follows that your personal voice will be present and accounted for. It's important to set the stage for your essay thesis/conclusion or your story climax/resolution in a way that supports your intent without sacrificing your voice.

Choose a novel and write a conclusion paragraph for an essay on how the author's life influenced their intent.

Life working as a teacher and seeing the harshness of war shaped William Golding’s writing into a message about the grim secrets of the human condition, further made eloquent by his characters and environments. He learned of the cruelty within the average person and saw it within everyone, even his own students. Drawing inspiration from his life, Golding fabricated The Lord of the Flies to make others understand what he now saw to be the truth of humanity: people are conditioned to accept authority, under the pretense that civilization is righteous. But unconditionally, all people have the capacity to sin, and Golding proves that it doesn’t take much more than a personality and situation to bring out the demons we all hide.