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Paper short abstract:

In the study we investigate plurilingual and pluricultural ability through the analysis of intermediate Japanese learners' essays written by students in Germany, Serbia and Japan. An analysis reveals that the same word has different meanings and is used in different contexts in each country.

Paper long abstract:

Plurilingual and pluricultural ability research has mostly been limited to philosophical and abstract discussions, but in this study we have attempted to investigate this ability through the analysis of learners' compositions. University students from different countries were tasked with writing essays on the same subject and we performed a quantitative analysis of the words used to express their thoughts, taking into consideration linguistic anthropology. The results indicate what teaching methods should be applied in order to obtain a deeper understanding of linguistic and cultural differences.

We examined essays on the subject 'A country easy to live in' written by intermediate Japanese learners in Germany and Serbia (35 + 33) and Japanese university students (8). In the analysis, (1) words that appear frequently in essays from each country were extracted using text mining techniques and examined with the co-occurring words. (2) Based on these results, the social background of each country was discussed from the viewpoint of linguistic anthropology.

An analysis of commonly used words in each country with co-occurring words revealed that the same word has different meanings and is used in different contexts. For example, "life" was strongly associated with words such as "individual, peace and happiness" in Germany, "work, salary and money" in Serbia, and "stress, climate and environment" in Japan (3)-(5).

3) To live happily in a country, peace, national politics and personal things are required. (Germany)

(4) People who do not have a high salary job have no money and their life is difficult. (Serbia)

(5) It is not necessary to have a comfortable climate all year round, like it is in spring and autumn in Japan, but it is important that the environment is not stressful. (Japan)

The results of this study show that same word may be used to imply different cultural and social nuances in different countries. In order to develop learners' plurilingual and pluricultural abilities it is important for L2 teachers to be aware of this.