Global Japanese-English Composition of Mind and Language (6) Workflow for 'Global Japanese-English Composition of Mind and Language'

(Continued from above)

Structure of the Mind

What exactly is the 'mind'?

In 'Global Japanese-English Composition of Mind and Language,' the structure of the mind is defined as shown in the following diagram.

First, we broadly divide the 'functions of the mind' into 'parts that can be expressed in language' and 'parts of the mind's functions that cannot be expressed in language.'

Next, we divide the 'parts that can be expressed in language' into four elements: 'thought (proposition),' 'information structure,' 'modality,' and 'style,' along with parts that do not fit into these categories.

Note that the four elements of the mind and the parts that do not fit into them are not expressed as language in separate forms.

Please note that a single linguistic expression

possesses all of these elements simultaneously.

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In 'Global Japanese-English Composition,' for the original Japanese manuscript, we classify the functions of the mind embedded within it into the various elements mentioned above.

After that, we create 'atomic proposition sentences' and use them as a basis to create English 'atomic proposition sentences.'

Then, we combine them in an appropriate form to create 'molecular proposition sentences.'

Finally, we further refine them to create the final English expression.

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Listing this procedure results in the following:

Step 1: Creation/acquisition of the original manuscript
Step 2: Creation of atomic proposition expressions in Japanese
Step 3: Creation of English atomic proposition sentences
Step 4: Creation of English molecular proposition sentences
Step 5: Refinement into the final English sentence

The 'Global Japanese-English Composition Worksheet of Mind and Language' below represents this procedure as a diagram.

After completing your own global English in this way, if possible, you should perform a comparative analysis with native English.

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[Column]
Japanese-English 'Composition' vs. Japanese-English 'Translation'

In a nutshell, Japanese-English 'translation' is a subset of Japanese-English 'composition'.

Represented as a Venn diagram, it looks like this.

What is called Japanese-English 'translation' only applies when the original manuscript was created by someone else within the scope of Japanese-English 'composition'.

At the same time, to be defined as Japanese-English 'translation', it is necessary to overlap the workings of the mind embedded in the original Japanese manuscript with the workings of the mind embedded in the English as much as possible.

On the other hand, in the case of Japanese-English 'composition', the original manuscript can be something created by someone else, or it can be something you created yourself.

Also, in either case, there is no need to overlap the workings of the mind embedded in the Japanese with the workings of the mind embedded in the English as much as possible.

Creating your own English text is the fundamental purpose of Japanese-English 'composition'.

Therefore, even if the workings of the mind in the finished English text deviate slightly from the workings of the mind in the original manuscript, it is not a particular problem as long as it is what you want to express.

In short, please consider Japanese-English 'composition' to be far freer than Japanese-English 'translation'.

(Continued below)

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