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Position

Associate Professor at Institute of Japan Studies

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Field

Linguistics / Pragmatics / Japanese Language Education

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"Contextual meaning": The key to learning foreign languages

My research specialty is pragmatics and discourse analysis. Pragmatics is the study of the "Contextual meaning" of words, and discourse analysis is the study of the interactions that result between the speaker and the listener during discourse.

Sometimes we say words which have meanings that are not conveyed directly and have implications different from their explicit meanings. Unless we understand this "inferred/alluded meaning," it is difficult to communicate clearly in any conversation. For example, the Japanese word "sumimasen" is used not only to mean an apology, but also to mean a range of other intentions, such as to express appreciation, to grab someone's attention, to decline an offer, or to make a request. Inside a train, this word is used to mean "excuse me, please get out of the way." If we begin our sentences with "sumimasen demo," it is used as a pretext to make an objection.

In this way, what the speaker implied and what the listener interpreted can vary even when the same word is used, depending on the setting or the context in which it is utilized. What the speaker implied and what the listener interpreted are not necessarily identical. These gaps present major obstacles when learning foreign languages.

For example, one of the phrases that international students struggle with is "Ochikaku ni okoshi no sai wa otachiyori kudasai" [Whenever you are nearby, please stop by]. As this is a typical Japanese phrase used for social etiquette purposes, Japanese people do not take this at face value. International students, however, do not realize that this is simply said for social etiquette and believe what they hear. They misunderstand that they received an invitation and visit the speaker's home, only to be shocked because the speaker considers the visit as an inconvenience. In Japanese language studies, it is critical that students are taught how to understand these "Contextual meaning" and speaker's real intentions.

These gaps have very much to do with the differences in country, culture, or society. How are the expressions of apology and appreciation different between Japanese and other languages? To shed light on this question, I am attempting to uncover the distinctive traits of the Japanese language by contrasting Japanese with such languages as Chinese, French, and Arabic. I expect that doing this will in turn deepen our understanding of other cultures and improve the quality of Japanese language teaching.

My area of research also includes conducting analyses of the mass media's critical statements, and thereby, revealing the distinctions and discriminatory perspectives based on gender, power, class, etc. that underlie words.

When humans use words to speak, various interactions are created between the speaker and the listener depending on such factors as the setting, situation, purpose, and communication method. I hope you will also discover the joy of finding out this mechanism.