Japanese: Bachelor‘s Degree Thesis

The general aim of the course is that the students will be able to plan and carry out an independent scientific investigation, and for this purpose use material in Japanese without difficulty.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• explain and argue about detailed and up-to-date knowledge within academic fields related to Japanese literature, linguistics, cultural anthropology or translation studies
• formulate relevant problems and an independent research plan for an academic investigation that is possible to carry out within a defined time limit
• search for and evaluate the usefulness of material relevant for the investigation, and use it in an independent and creative way
• take into account relevant issues of research ethics when carrying out the investigation
• argue about the strengths and weaknesses of different theoretical perspectives and give reasons for their use in an academic investigation
• present a finished research project in writing, in English or Japanese, using logically convincing language and detailed arguments
• give due consideration to the structure of an academic paper, its references, footnotes and quotations
• evaluate their own research process and apply the conclusions of this evaluation
• give constructive criticism of the work of another and handle the criticism of others in an objective way.

The course consists of an individual research project within an academic field related to Japanese literature, linguistics, cultural anthropology or translation science. It starts with a few seminars in which the students present their individual research plans and discuss the plans of the other students. In these seminars different problems concerning the formats for writing an academic thesis are also discussed. The main part of the course consists of individual work on the research project. A seminar is placed in the middle of the course, in which a preliminary version of the thesis is presented and discussed by the other students. The finished thesis is presented and defended at a seminar at the end of the course.

The course is examined in writing, by the completion of an academic thesis and an abstract, and orally, by the defence of the student‘s own thesis and being the opponent of a thesis written by one of the other students. The thesis may be written in English or Japanese and should have a length of about 8 000 - 10 000 words if written in English, or 24 000 - 30 000 characters if written in Japanese. The abstract should be written in English.

Teaching is done in the form of seminars and individual mentoring. Japanese, English and, where appropriate, Swedish are used as the language of tuition.

The Swedish grades A–F.