Department of Linguistics

e-mail:	gengokyo(at)l.u-tokyo.ac.jp *Replace (at) with @.
Tel:	03-5841-3807 (ext. 23807)

The department specializes in phonology, phonetics, syntax, morphology, semantics, cognitive linguistics, comparative and historical linguistics (e.g., Indo-European linguistics), linguistic typology, sociolinguistics, corpus analysis, sign language studies, field linguistics, and the deciphering of ancient languages. Research subjects can range from relatively familiar languages such as Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean to other, less widely known languages in Asia, Africa, North and South America, and the Pacific, as well as those that are now out of use, such as ancient languages.

Teaching staff

Yoshiki NISHIMURA (Professor) Cognitive Grammar

Research fields:	Relationship between grammar and meaning, Theoretical foundations of cognitive grammar, Japanese-English comparisons
Courses taught:	In the lecture course, he presents an overall picture of cognitive grammar and explains how its theories can be used to analyze specific linguistic phenomena. He also teaches close readings of basic literature written in English.

Masato KOBAYASHI (Professor) Historical Linguistics

Research fields:	Indo-European and Dravidian languages
Courses taught:	The lecture courses cover historical linguistics (comparative linguistics), phonology, and so on. He also teaches a seminar with reading of original texts in Indo-European languages.

Naonori NAGAYA (Associate Professor) Linguistics

Research fields:	His research focuses on the grammatical structures of Austronesian languages, especially those spoken in the Philippines and Indonesia, from the viewpoint of linguistic typology. His linguistic research emphasizes fieldwork and experimentation and attempts to describe and generalize based on empirical facts by filming and recording actual discourse and conversations. More recently, he has been working with corpora. For more information, please visit his website. https://sites.google.com/site/naonorinagaya/ (Personal webpage) https://researchmap.jp/nori.nagaya (Researchmap)
Courses taught:	He teaches classes on linguistic typology and a seminar on field linguistics. He strives to provide practical classes where students not only understand linguistic knowledge, but also use it to analyze language in practice. Click here to read a teaching-related essay. (https://note.com/norinagaya/) Available here.

Research fields:

His research focuses on the grammatical structures of Austronesian languages, especially those spoken in the Philippines and Indonesia, from the viewpoint of linguistic typology. His linguistic research emphasizes fieldwork and experimentation and attempts to describe and generalize based on empirical facts by filming and recording actual discourse and conversations. More recently, he has been working with corpora. For more information, please visit his website.
https://sites.google.com/site/naonorinagaya/ (Personal webpage)
https://researchmap.jp/nori.nagaya (Researchmap)

Courses taught:

He teaches classes on linguistic typology and a seminar on field linguistics. He strives to provide practical classes where students not only understand linguistic knowledge, but also use it to analyze language in practice. Click here to read a teaching-related essay.
(https://note.com/norinagaya/) Available here.

Satoko SHIRAI (Full-time Lecturer) Field Linguistics, Geolinguistics

Research fields:	Tibeto-Burmese languages, Chan languages, Grammatical description, Morphology, Geolinguistics
Courses taught:	Her lecture courses cover Tibeto-Burmese languages studies, Asian geography and languages, and so on. She also teaches a seminar where students read and analyze original texts on morphology and articulatory phonetics.

Shunsuke MATSUDA (Assistant Professor) Japanese Sign Language, Cognitive Linguistics

Research fields:	Japanese Sign Language, cognitive linguistics
Courses taught:	In his lecture courses, students critically examine methodological issues based on Japanese Sign Language data.