e-mail: kokugo(at)l.u-tokyo.ac.jp
*Replace (at) with @.
Tel: 03-5841-3813

The object of study of this department is the Japanese language in general, covering all aspects of the language, including phonology, writing, vocabulary, grammar, and style, from the pre-Nara period to the present, and geographically, from standard Japanese to various regional dialects (including Ryukyuan).

Teaching staff

Shuji HIZUME (Professor) History of Japanese Language

Research fields: History of Japanese phonology, History of Sino-Japanese readings, History of oriental phonological studies, History of Siddham studies
Courses taught: In his seminars, students are trained to collect and analyze usage examples exhaustively and to handle literary materials using photographs of old manuscripts and other materials. (For more information: https://kokugo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/?page_id=11)
 

Izumi KONISHI (Associate Professor) Dialectology

Research fields: Descriptive linguistics and sociolinguistics of Japanese dialects
Courses taught: In their seminars, students learn perspectives and methods of research on regional and social varieties of Japanese through fieldwork and corpora. (For more information: https://kokugo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/?page_id=11)
 

Junko HAYASHI (Associate Professor) Grammar

Research fields: Grammar of modern Japanese , History of grammar
Courses taught: Lectures deal with the knowledge and ideas necessary for the study of Japanese grammar. Seminars train students how to read articles on grammatical theory and how to develop arguments from language facts. (For more information: https://kokugo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/?page_id=11)
 

Asuko KONDO (Assistant Professor) Quantitative linguistics

Research fields: Construction of corpora (databased language resources) of written Japanese, quantitative studies of vocabulary and writing styles
Courses taught: Lectures on basic knowledge and techniques for using Japanese corpora.
(For more information: https://www.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/eng/teacher/database/14213.html)