Arts

28 May 09

Visiting Professors Masayoshi Shibatani and Uwano Zendo at the launch of the Research Centre for Japanese Language and Linguistics

The Research Centre for Japanese Language and Linguistics launched earlier this month as the newest part of the Faculty of Oriental Studies.

The Centre, which is housed in dedicated space in 41 Wellington Square, launched with a drinks reception attended by around fifty guests, including the Research Centre's first visiting scholars, Professor Masayoshi Shibatani of Rice University and Kobe University and Professor Uwano Zendo of Tokyo University.

Professor Bjarke Frellesvig, the Director of the Centre, said: ’We were delighted with the successful launch of the Centre and also to welcome formally our two first visiting scholars to the Centre. Both the fact that we are attracting such high profile visitors as well as the good turnout for the launch party confirm that Japanese Linguistics is thriving in Oxford and the timeliness of the establishment of the Centre.

‘The Centre, which is the only one of its kind in Europe, will be an important part of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, coordinating and highlighting activities in Japanese linguistics in Oxford. This is a vital area both within general linguistics and within Japanese Studies in general and it is gratifying that this is now finding wider support and recognition in the University. No doubt this will also serve to make our activities within Japanese Studies even more visible in Japan and the rest of the world.’ 

Professor Shibatani's research interests include - in addition to Japanese linguistics - general language typology, language universals, syntax, and Austronesian linguistics. Professor Uwano who specialises in dialects and phonology is a past President of the Linguistic Society of Japan, Director of the Society for Japanese Linguistics, and Director of the Phonetic Society of Japan.

The Centre was created by the Humanities Division in March 2009 to function as an umbrella for research activities related to Japanese language and linguistics through the University. A major research project hosted within the Centre is the four-and-a-half year project “Verb semantics and argument realization in pre-modern Japanese”, which is funded by a generous award of almost £1 million from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), but the research of the members of the Centre is wide-ranging, from acquisition of Japanese as a foreign language to reconstruction of proto-Japanese morphology.

The Centre also serves as a forum for publicising teaching, seminars, lectures, and other activities of interest to Japanese linguistics, and as a point of access to information for prospective graduate students interested in Japanese language and linguistics. Most of the Centre’s internal membership are staff and graduate students from the Faculty of Oriental Studies and the new Faculty of Linguistics, but the Centre also has a membership of external affiliates who have a connection with the Centre and its members, for example through joint research projects.